Residential property research and investment group Ironstone Group has appointed Michael Jaeger as head of business development.

Jaeger comes from Real Estate Capital Partners, where he was divisional director head of retail distribution.

He also held senior roles with Next Financial as New South Wales state manager and Challenger Financial Services as senior business development management, where he was a key contributor to the successful Howard Mortgage Trust and Challenger Life annuity business.

The appointment comes as Ironstone has nearly completed the integration of Ironstone Funds Management and Capital Property Advisory, following the merger last year.

"I spent the last six to eight months refining the processes, procedures, documentation and infrastructure to make sure that once the business starts flowing at a reasonable rate we can cope with that," Ironstone Group chief executive Sean Preece said.

"The sales function wasn't something I wanted to push until I had my back office in order."

He said the group was now ready to expand and was planning to add three more roles to the group's 24 staff, including a customer relationship manager, senior buyers agent and office manager.

Preece is in advanced discussions with candidates and expects to have the roles filled within the next three weeks.

The group runs one of the few residential property funds in Australia.

"The sector of residential property has always been under-serviced. It is the forgotton sector," Preece said.

"We approach the sector the same as any asset class and apply the same logic to investing in assets through a top-down and bottom-up research process."

The fund has been running for three years and in 2009 produced a return of 13.3 per cent against an average house price increase of 4.4 per cent.

The fund is still small at $4 million in funds under management (FUM), but Preece said he hoped to build that now the proper structures were in place.

"Inflows have been slow, but we are starting to get strong support from high net worth investors, small institutions and small to mid-sized super funds, especially self-managed super funds," he said.

When the fund reaches about $20 million in FUM, Ironstone will look to have it rated.