The construction of single-family homes built just for the purpose of renting is breaking records in the United States.
The trend is surging after the increase of home prices, the rise of inflation and renters making a point to avoid committing to a mortgage.
In its annual Build-to-Rent (BTR) Report, RentCafe looks at the evolution of “horizontal apartments,” rental housing built on small lots with high-end amenities.
The highest yearly total was 14,541 BTR homes built in 2022, a 47 percent increase from 2021, when only 10,000 were built.
Eleven metro areas saw surges in construction of BTR from 100 percent to 700 percent in the past five years. At the top of the list are Charlotte, N.C. and Atlanta, which went from a few hundred units to more than 1,300 and 1,800, respectively. Detroit doubled its supply of BTR from 2,300 to 4,500 houses.
BTR is unstoppable in the U.S. construction market: 45,000 rental homes are scheduled for construction, triple the number of homes built in 2022. Leading the way is Phoenix with nearly 5, 500 under construction, followed by Dallas with 4,400 and Houston with 2,600. In Atlanta, 2,200 are under construction.
The size of BTR homes is also increasing by 2.6 percent from 2021 to 1,362 square feet (approximately four bedrooms) in 2022.
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Rebecca Barnabi
