For a city with a current population of 340,000, such aspiration is not to be sniffed at. Crucially, all these people will need places to live. The council estimates that an additional 33,000 homes will be required to meet the demand it hopes is already building. With a significant proportion of the new workforce expected to be young graduates, purpose-built rental developments will need to shoulder much of the burden.

However, it is fair to say that the Belfast resi market – and the build-to-rent (BTR) market in particular – lags behind many of its UK peers. So why has Belfast been relatively slow on the uptake when it comes to BTR? And why is now the time for that to change?