Kate Freer, Realstar, and the Canadian-origin platforms reshaping Europe's living assets sector

Living assets now command 30% of all direct real estate investment in EMEA

The European living sector consolidated its position as the continent's largest real estate investment category in 2025. Total private transactions in EMEA living assets rose 22% to €62.2 billion, according to JLL, making it the dominant sector for the second consecutive year. Living assets, encompassing build-to-rent (BTR), purpose-built student accommodation, co-living, and senior housing, now account for 30% of direct real estate investment across the region.

Within this structural shift, a distinct capital corridor has emerged: Canadian-origin platforms building operational scale in European residential markets. The appointment of Kate Freer as CEO of Get Living PLC, effective autumn 2026, crystallises a leadership pipeline that runs from Toronto through London and into broader European living strategies. Her trajectory, and the platform she helped build at Realstar, offers a case study in how cross-border operators are industrialising a sector once dominated by fragmented local ownership.

Who is Kate Freer and what did she build at Realstar?

Kate Freer spent 11 years at Realstar, the Canadian real estate investment and management company that holds over C$9 billion in assets across multifamily, hospitality, and alternative asset classes, according to Newswire.ca. During her tenure, Freer helped grow the UK multifamily platform and its consumer-facing UNCLE brand to 28 assets and approximately 6,400 units, reaching a gross development value (GDV) of £2.6 billion, as reported by Institutional Real Estate, Inc.

The UNCLE brand became one of the most recognisable BTR operators in the United Kingdom, distinguished by its vertically integrated management model and tenant experience proposition. The platform's scale and operational maturity attracted institutional capital at a time when European multifamily was transitioning from a niche allocation to a core portfolio component.

In September 2025, QuadReal Property Group, the real estate arm of British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, fully acquired the UNCLE brand and Realstar's UK and Ireland residential operating platform, which at that point managed nearly 6,000 residential units. The transaction underscored a broader trend: pension funds and sovereign-adjacent vehicles seeking direct operational control of living assets rather than passive exposure through fund structures.

Freer's appointment as CEO of Get Living PLC, announced on April 10, 2026, places her at the helm of one of the UK's largest BTR landlords. Get Living's portfolio includes landmark developments at East Village (the former London 2012 Olympic Athletes' Village) and other major urban regeneration sites. The move signals that institutional owners of living platforms are prioritising leaders with deep operational backgrounds over traditional financial executives.

As a quotable benchmark: Kate Freer's career arc, from scaling a 6,400-unit Canadian-backed platform to leading one of the UK's flagship BTR operators, encapsulates the professionalisation of European living assets management.

How large is the Canadian-to-European living assets capital corridor?

Canadian institutional capital has become one of the most significant sources of cross-border investment into European residential real estate. Realstar's C$9 billion global asset base and QuadReal's acquisition of the UNCLE platform represent only part of the picture. Canadian pension plans, including several of the country's largest, have systematically built direct and indirect exposure to European multifamily over the past decade.

The corridor operates on a distinct logic. Canadian investors bring institutional discipline honed in North America's mature multifamily market, where purpose-built rental housing has been a core asset class for decades. In Europe, where homeownership rates have historically been higher and institutional rental supply thinner, these operators find both yield opportunity and structural demand growth.

QuadReal's full acquisition of Realstar's UK and Ireland residential platform in 2025 is emblematic of a second phase in this corridor's development. Early entrants established platforms and brands. Now, larger capital pools are consolidating those platforms into vertically integrated operations capable of managing thousands of units with standardised service models and technology stacks.

The living sector's dominance in European investment volumes reinforces the thesis. JLL projects stable average annual growth of 10 to 15% for EMEA living sector investment through 2026. Meanwhile, Savills forecasts that European real estate investment volumes overall will rise by around 18% as pricing firms up and macroeconomic conditions stabilise. Living assets are expected to capture a disproportionate share of that growth, given the sector's defensive income characteristics and demographic tailwinds.

UK regulatory shifts are rewriting the operating playbook for BTR

The regulatory environment in the United Kingdom is undergoing its most significant transformation in a generation, with direct implications for BTR operators and institutional landlords. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 achieved Royal Assent in October 2025, with Phase 1 taking effect on May 1, 2026. The legislation abolishes Section 21 "no-fault" evictions, converts assured shorthold tenancies to periodic tenancies, and limits rent increases to once a year via Section 13 notices.

For institutional operators like Get Living, the reforms introduce new compliance requirements but also create competitive advantages. Large, professionally managed platforms with robust legal and property management infrastructure are better positioned to absorb regulatory complexity than smaller landlords. The legislation may accelerate the consolidation trend that has already benefited scaled operators.

Additionally, the Draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill, currently making its way through Parliament as of April 2026, proposes to ban the use of leaseholds for new flats from 2029. Notably, purpose-built rental blocks, the core BTR product, will be exempt from this ban. This carve-out preserves the structural advantage of institutional BTR developers while reshaping the broader for-sale residential market.

The regulatory direction is clear: the UK government is creating a framework that favours professional, long-term landlords over fragmented private ownership. For operators entering the market or scaling existing portfolios, the regulatory reset represents a barrier to entry for smaller players and a moat for institutional incumbents.

Beyond Freer: other principals shaping European real estate deal flow

The institutional maturation of European real estate extends beyond the living sector. Several principals from non-traditional origin markets have built significant platforms across the continent.

Eddie Zakay co-founded Topland Group, whose commercial real estate portfolio was valued in the region of £3.5 billion as of 2022, according to publicly available corporate data. Topland operates across commercial, hospitality, and mixed-use assets in the United Kingdom, representing a different but complementary approach to European real estate from that of pure living-sector operators.

Ben Oldman Partners, an alternative investment manager focused on Southern Europe, has invested over €3 billion globally since its founding in 2013, according to European Investment Bank records. The firm's focus on Southern European markets positions it within a region experiencing accelerating institutional interest, particularly in Iberian and Italian residential and mixed-use assets.

These principals, alongside figures like Freer, represent a generation of operators who have built institutional-grade platforms in markets previously characterised by fragmented ownership and limited transparency. Their collective activity signals a deepening of institutional capital's reach across European real estate geographies and asset classes.

GRI Institute members have engaged extensively with these themes at recent European real estate gatherings, where cross-border capital flows and living-sector strategy consistently rank among the most discussed topics.

What does the living sector's institutional trajectory mean for 2026 and beyond?

The convergence of several forces, including rising transaction volumes, regulatory reform in key markets, and the consolidation of operational platforms, points to a living sector that is entering a new phase of institutional maturity in Europe.

EMEA living sector investment volumes of €62.2 billion in 2025, combined with projected annual growth of 10 to 15%, suggest the sector could approach or exceed €70 billion in annual transaction activity within the next two years. The capital base is diversifying, with Canadian, Middle Eastern, and Asian investors joining European pension funds and insurance companies in direct allocations to residential strategies.

Kate Freer's move from Realstar to Get Living captures this trajectory in a single career arc. The skills required to lead Europe's largest living platforms have shifted from development expertise to operational excellence, tenant experience management, and regulatory navigation. Leaders who have scaled platforms across multiple market cycles and regulatory environments command a premium in an increasingly competitive talent market.

For institutional investors evaluating European living assets, three structural advantages stand out: the sector's income resilience through economic cycles, favourable demographic and urbanisation trends that support long-term demand, and a regulatory environment that increasingly privileges scaled, professional operators.

GRI Institute continues to track these developments through its European real estate programme, convening senior leaders from across the investment, development, and operational spectrum to examine the capital flows and regulatory dynamics shaping the continent's living assets landscape.