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What do you think about renting versus owning residential property? Not
much? at renting is for people who can't afford to buy?
Get out of the 80s. As
a matter of fact, get out of
the 90s and early 2000s
even. Renting is big business now, and the
single family rental (SFR) sector is a genuine
emerging growth market luring investors large
and small across the country.
e growth potential in SFR lies in the
sector's ripeness for disruption; a change in
old-school attitudes about what it takes to own
rental properties and what it means to live in
one. People, particularly younger ones, don't
see renting as a downward move these days.
Renting is seen as a more flexible option for a
society with no real roots, and that means the
SFR market is prime for investors who want to
provide homes, however fleeting, to a country
on the perpetual move.
But SFR's strength as an emerging investor
market is not merely moored in the country's
transient personality. It's also rooted in the fact
that SFR has been the most stable sector in real
estate for 40 years or so.
According to Wally Charnoff, CEO of
Investability, a Denver-based online search and
acquisition platform, SFR has since the mid-
1970s made up roughly 10 percent of all U.S.
residential properties. at has remained steady
through all the booms and busts we've had since
the Ford Administration.
Add to that the fact that 12 percent of the
American population lives in rental houses, says
Gary Beasley, CEO and founder of Roofstock,
a Bay Area-based online marketplace of SFR
properties. is 12 percent is somewhere in the
neighborhood of 15 million households, and
in Roofstock's own numbers represents a $2
trillion potential marketplace.
e irony is, the SFR sector has been
roundly ignored pretty much this whole time.
At its heart, says Amy Sanchez, vice president
of strategic initiatives at Prescient Inc. a
full-service real estate and asset management
firm in Miami, SFR is a mom-and-pop-driven
enterprise; small investors who own a couple
COVER
STORY
INDUSTRY
INSIGHT
INDUSTRY
INSIGHT
MOVING WITH
THE MARKET
HOW ARE INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS
CAPITALIZING ON THE EXPLOSION OF
THE SINGLE FAMILY RENTAL MARKET?
