Builders and developers will start building more detached single-family homes for rent, new study says

by | Aug 4, 2015 | Article, Market & Trends

Builders and developers will start building more single-family homes for rent John Burns says in new study

John Burns

By John Burns
Real Estate Consulting

Builders and developers will now start building more detached homes for rent. For years, home builders have ignored 10 percent of housing demand, allowing resale homes to fill the demand. As shown below, 12.7 million of today’s 120 million households rent a detached home. Visit John Burns Real Estate Consulting here for more information.

Builders and developers will build more single-family homes for rent says John Burns real estate consultiing

29% of Rental Demand

44.3 million US rental households occupy:
• 15.5 million individually owned rentals
o 12.7 million detached homes (29%)
o 2.8 million condominiums and townhomes
• 26.8 apartment buildings
o 13.2 million units in small apartment buildings (less than 10 units)
o 13.6 million units in larger apartment buildings (10+ units)
• 2.0 million mobile homes, boats, etc.

54 percent of landlords own only one property

The 12.7 million detached home renters have largely been ignored by builders and developers for years as both supply and demand steadily grew over many decades. The vast majority of the growth of individually owned rental homes has historically come from households who lived in the home before relocating and decided to continue owning and renting the home rather than selling it, according to John Burns. 

Approximately 54 percent of the landlords of single-family rental homes own only one home, per RentRange.

54 percent of landlords own only one rental property

Detached Rentals in Masterplans

We have noted that even actively selling masterplans, despite not building single-family homes for rent, have a significant number of single-family renters. Just go into Zillow and look for yourself.

The proactive developers are now looking to develop these neighborhoods and homes themselves, rather than letting others meet the demand.

Our research, which we confirmed with the CEOs of several of the institutional investors, shows that these renters live in detached homes primarily because that is the preferred lifestyle. Most of them did not even consider renting an apartment. They prefer to live in a detached home and are renting either because of:
1. Necessity. They do not have the ability to qualify for a mortgage.
2. Flexibility. They choose to rent to maintain the flexibility to move.
3. Choice. They would rather spend what they earn today than save for a down payment.

Thus, single-family rental home competes more with the detached resale and new home market than with apartments.

Clearly, there is a subset of renters who will pay a premium to rent new, as evidenced by the 200K+ apartment units that are built and leased every year. If it works for apartment developers, why has there not been much attempt to build single-family homes for rent? Those days are now ending.

Seizing the Opportunity

Here come the home builders, seizing the opportunity to build single-family detached homes to be sold to professional investors or to manage themselves. Consider the following:
Starwood Waypoint, an owner of 16,000+/- rental homes, has worked with 12 builders to buy homes from them. While they have often bought the slowest selling floor plan or the last few homes in a community, they are now actively pursuing new subdivisions in areas where they currently operate. Their CEO recently told me that their business has shifted dramatically in the last few years, with only 25%+/- of their tenants now having gone through foreclosure, versus 50%+ a few years ago.
• The CEO of American Residential Properties shared at our recent client conference that their tenant profile has shifted as well, with new leases typically to young families with more than enough income to buy but who are choosing to rent primarily to have the flexibility to move.
• Masterplan developers have taken notice. Bob Sharpe, the owner of Rancho Sahuarita in Tucson, surveyed his 5,500 home community and found that renters occupy 22% of the individually-owned homes. With 4,000 homes left to sell, why not build and rent homes to this group, many of whom will buy homes in the future?
• Lennar has been a pioneer in detached subdivisions for rent with their Fronteracommunity in a suburb of Reno Nevada. Rents for 1,210- to 2,182-square-foot homes range from $1499 to $1999 per month, or $0.92 to $1.20 per square foot, perapartmentguide.com. While Lennar also runs an apartment company, they acknowledged that the management complexities are very different. Lennar’s CEO recently noted that “it’s a pretty exciting opportunity for our company…and we’re probably going to launch another one or two as part of our evaluation as we go forward.”

 Drop the Stigma

There remains a stigma that renters are not as good for the neighborhood as owners. From personal experience in my own neighborhood, as well as Census data, I can testify that they certainly move more often—and that they have always been great neighbors and their homes have been very well maintained.

 Conclusion

Last year, approximately 25,000 detached homes were built for rent. We believe that number will increase significantly over the next several years. We expect detached homes for rent to become an important segmentation opportunity for the top masterplans in the country, who will no longer ignore 10 percent of housing demand.

This article courtesy of John Burns Real Estate Consulting. If you have any questions, please call (949) 870-1210 or email or click here to learn more about the consulting services.

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