Built-for-Rent Housing Starts Hold Flat

The number of built-for-rent housing starts have remained flat over the last year despite declines in other types of new construction, the National Association of Home Builders reports.

According to NAHB’s analysis of data from the Census Bureau’s Quarterly Starts and Completions by Purpose and Design, there were 11,000 single-family built-for-rent starts for the second quarter of 2019. This is lower than the 13,000 estimated for the second quarter of 2018 however. Over the last four quarters, 42,000 such homes began construction, which is equal to the prior four quarter starts total.

Given the small size of this market segment, the quarter-to-quarter movements typically are not statistically significant. The current four-quarter moving average of market share (4.9%) remains higher than the recent historical average of 2.7% (1992-2012) but is down from the 5.8% reading registered at the start of 2013. As measured for this analysis, this class of single-family construction excludes homes that are sold to another party for rental purposes, which NAHB estimates may represent another two percent of single-family starts. The estimates in this post only include homes built and held for rental purposes.

Read more