Single-Family Rental Construction More Active Than Ever
There is an all-time high right now with single-family constructed homes. Within the past year, there have been over 14,500 new single-family homes that have been built and this trend has no plans of slowing down. There are nearly 44,700 new build-to-rent homes underway across the country. With Phoenix has the busiest pipeline with 5,500 build-to-rent homes under construction, followed by Dallas at 4,400 and Houston at 2,600.
According to Construction Dive, the totals for new single-family build-to-rent homes delivered and under construction by the end of 2022 surged far ahead of the mid-year numbers that Yardi Matrix, RentCafe’s parent company, recorded last August.
Eleven of the nation’s major metros saw surges in new BTR home construction in the past five years, ranging from 100% to 700%. Charlotte, North Carolina, and Atlanta saw the steepest jumps, up from a few hundred-five years ago to more than 1,300 and 1,800, respectively.
Phoenix has the largest build-to-rent housing inventory at 8,239, more than triple its count in 2018. The single-family home ownership market was hard hit by the housing crisis of 2008, after which institutional investors bought two-thirds of the homes that were no longer owner-occupied, about 20,000 units total, according to RentCafe. Now recovered, the region’s population growth has created a high demand for rentals — both in build-to-rent communities and in formerly owner-occupied homes.
One byproduct of the work-from-home trend is the need or desire for more space. The average size of a BTR home rose by 2.6% in 2022, up to 1,361 square feet, or an estimated four bedrooms. Projects have also become larger and denser, according to RentCafe, averaging 130 units per property.
