According to Rick Palacios Jr., director of research for John Burns Real Estate Consulting (JBREC), “The stigma of renting has ... gone away,” and this is proving especially true for Baby Boomers entering their golden years.
Single-family rentals (SFRs) are increasingly popular for this cohort, who are seeking homes requiring less maintenance, but don't want to size down to an apartment unit. In 2017, the Urban Institute reported that SFRs, both attached and detached, were the fastest-growing segment of the housing market, and builders have taken that cue, Realtor.com reports. New construction of SFRs increased from 37,000 in 2017 to 43,000 in 2018, per National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) data, and are expected to increase their market share by 2 percent through 2019.
They're going up predominantly in the suburbs of Southern states stretching from Arizona through Texas and into Florida and the Carolinas, says Rick Palacios Jr., director of research for John Burns Real Estate Consulting. There is more affordably priced land available in this part of the country, and the cheaper property means rents don't have to be sky-high for builders to make ends meet.
Says Palacios, “Fewer and fewer people think you need to own a home to make it.”
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