By Taylor Williams
Whether by choice or necessity, the share of Americans who rent rather than own their homes is on the rise.
Compared to the counterparts in the traditional multifamily space, owners and operators of build-to-rent (BTR) properties believe that they are in some ways better positioned to capitalize on this trend. And according to some professionals who own and operate these properties, resident retention is a powerful supportive factor behind this sentiment.
Ty Robinson, president at Dallas-based ONM Living, the BTR division of HistoryMaker Homes, says that the majority of his company’s residents are experienced renters who are coming from traditional apartments. Robinson has observed that while these individuals may take longer to formally sign a lease for a BTR home than they would a regular apartment, all other factors being held equal, once they’re in, they tend to stick around.
“Given the price point — we typically see premiums of 10 to 30 percent relative to traditional multifamily — and the weight of the decision, it often takes those people longer to commit, but they’re not as transient,” Robinson says. “These residents are staying longer, and as experienced renters, they don’t typically need as much oversight from a property management standpoint, which creates an efficiency on the expense side.”
Within the past six months, ONM Living has launched leasing at three BTR communities in the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) area: The 196-unit Cottages at Anna Station in Denton County; the 378-unit Cottages at Deer Creek in South Fort Worth; and the 268-unit Cottages at Lake Lavon on the northeastern outskirts of Dallas. As of December 2025, average asking rents for the three properties’ one-, two- and three-bedroom homes ranged from $1,555 to $1,750 per month. According to Apartments.com, the average rent in the greater Dallas area today is about $1,415 per month.
Jeff Holzmann, COO of Dallas-based multifamily owner-operator RREAF Holdings, sees similar levels of elevated stickiness among residents within his company’s BTR portfolio relative to its traditional apartments.
“We have turnover in multifamily; it’s the nature of the beast, but those leases come and go very quickly,” says Holzmann. “BTR represents more of a long-term decision; people come tour, then come back with family a week later, all while the unit remains vacant. But there’s ultimately less turnover, so in that regard, it’s more similar to operating single-family homes. The rest — utilities, services, maintenance — tends to be on par with multifamily.”
While Robinson and Holzmann agree on resident retention as a key driver of BTR performance, they’ve observed some differences in terms of how long it takes their BTR developments to stabilize. Holzmann says that speed of absorption is “the main KPI [key performance indicator] that we see as different between BTR and traditional multifamily.” Robinson, for his part, says that ONM Living’s BTR portfolio has experienced rates of absorption that are “competitive” with traditional multifamily, to the tune of “18 to 32 leases per month.”
Two Camps
Sources agree, however, that the “affordability gap” between renters and homeowners is widening. In addition, there is widespread recognition among BTR owners and operators of a clear bifurcation in terms of what drives their customers’ housing decisions: renters by choice and renters by necessity.
“We see that in our markets, 70 to 80 percent of our renters rent by need and aren’t quite there in terms of the financial ability to purchase a home,” says Robinson. “We also have 20 to 30 percent of our customer base who are renters by choice and looking for lifestyle, flexibility and effortless living. Their financial standing allows them to purchase a home, but they’d rather have a professionally managed, fully amenitized home and spend that money elsewhere.”
“The affordability gap is only growing, and the proportion of renters by need is growing,” Robinson continues. “But it’s the renters-by-choice segment that we’re still figuring out. The number of renters we have now who are coming in and just want the lifestyle and perks of BTR — we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg there.”
“We see those two groups, as well as others on the edge of the spectrum,” concurs Holzmann. “Because we’ve historically catered to necessity renters and haven’t built many high-end apartments or luxury homes, we really try to capture those in the middle — people who don’t want to live in multifamily but aren’t quite ready to buy a $1 million home. The bottom line is that we still have a housing shortage, and it’s still expensive to both buy and build.”
While housing providers have long understood differences between the renter-by-choice and renter-by-necessity segments, with BTR, there are other demographic variables to consider. By virtue of the typical BTR home size, as well as features like garages and backyards and access to communal amenities, the product type is appealing to families with children — a cohort that doesn’t fit as comfortably into traditional apartments. BTR owners know this and are looking to capitalize.
“Even with Texas’ relative affordability story, an Austin starter home with a 6 percent-plus mortgage [typically] prices out households that can comfortably afford the rent on a 1,500-square-foot, three-bedroom home,” says Jason Joseph, CEO and managing partner of Trilogy Investment Co., a metro Atlanta-based developer of BTR and for-sale residential communities. “BTR captures that family. And since families with school-age kids don’t move every 12 months, turnover is lower and owners have meaningful pricing power on renewals.”
Trilogy recently broke ground on REV3 at Walnut Creek, a 190-unit BTR project in northeast Austin. The property will offer three-bedroom townhomes with an average size of roughly 1,500 square feet.
Joseph also points out that once a property is stabilized, the operating economics are “stickier” than a comparable apartment community — a nod to BTR’s tendency to support long-term renter tenure.
How We Got Here
According to data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau and analyzed by Realbricks.com, a platform that strives to empower average Americans with the ability to invest in real estate, the United States had about 45 million renter households as of the fourth quarter of 2024. That figure marks a 21 percent increase from 2010, when approximately 37 million households were renters.
Over that same time period, according to Realbricks, America’s housing inventory grew from roughly 131 million to 145 million units. The math therefore reveals that in 2010, about 28 percent of American households were renters, whereas in 2024, 31 percent of households subscribe to that designation. In addition, data from Apartments.com shows that in 2010, about 40 percent of Americans age 25 to 34 were homeowners; today that figure is closer to 37 percent.
The year 2010 is also germane to this analysis as a year in which American home values bottomed out in the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis. With mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures skyrocketing, professional investors took advantage, snapping up hundreds of thousands of single-family homes with the intent of renting them. It would take the better part of a decade for society to start pushing back.
Cue the recent rise and fervor of BTR. The product catered to a wider range of renters, offered a titillating version of the “American Dream” of homeownership and — like nearly every other commercial deal or project at the time — was easily capitalized by historically low interest rates. Whereas the practice of buying single-family homes on one-off bases and renting them out was already established, BTR plays expanded on that business plan by introducing new construction, communal amenities and professional management teams. On paper, it was the best of both worlds, and capital sources couldn’t get enough.
The sector has subsequently cooled and evolved, as real estate tends to do. But Ting Qiao, co-founder and CEO of Texas-based BTR developer Wan Bridge, believes that the next phase of evolution for the asset class has already arrived, as evidenced by the presence of institutional capital.
“Four to five years ago, capital was flying into this sector, creating a lot of new supply and challenges to lease up, and new communities were trying to win every prospect and giving aggressive concessions and rent specials,” he says. “Today, the sector is attracting sophisticated institutional capital, including private equity firms and REITs, that increasingly understand the fundamentals of the product and are investing with a longer-term perspective.”
Sources also say that BTR properties still command rent premiums over traditional multifamily assets while still offering that same appeal to a broader swath of the renter pool.
“The capital is still there, but the tourists have left,” says Joseph. “In 2021 and 2022, every allocator in the country was chasing yield into anything labeled ‘BTR’, and a lot of that capital was buying multifamily underwriting on a horizontal product. The [interest] rate moves corrected that. What you have today is institutional money that finally treats BTR as its own asset class, with its own basis, its own absorption pace and its own exit [strategy].”
“The macroeconomics today are very different [than a few years ago],” concedes Robinson. “But from a global perspective, the interest and demand from both debt and equity [sources] for BTR [deals] have solidified, and if anything grown over the past couple years given the performance of the sector and the concept of the asset class.”
Robinson also says that owners and operators have “solidified themselves in terms of understanding exactly what the asset class is.” However, in conversations with capital finders, it’s still not uncommon to spend a few minutes hashing out the formal definition of BTR and reiterating the basic value propositions that exist within the space — a testament to the fact that compared to other commercial food groups, BTR is still in its infancy.
Keep It Going
Against a backdrop of super-low interest rates, renting costs surged in the immediate post-pandemic era. U.S. multifamily developers took advantage, recently capping a historic building boom that was particularly pronounced in Texas.
Renters, especially those who do so by necessity and those who live in higher-priced urban environments, were therefore motivated to shop around. As a result, apartment turnover rates rose.
While the exact rate of multifamily turnover across the country’s hundreds of millions of apartments remains unclear, data from multiple sources suggests that the figure is somewhere between 40 and 50 percent — a source or pure opportunity for the BTR segment.
Qiao says that when his company was starting out — while these broader dynamics were coming and going within the multifamily market — the prevailing view was that BTR was more similar to for-sale single-family homes. But over the past several years, as supply exploded, Qiao says it’s become increasingly clear that BTR is more like a “little brother” to traditional multifamily.
“BTR is really just horizontal apartments,” he says. “Although residents’ spaces are different, the nature of the business — site selection, supply-demand dynamics, underwriting — that’s almost the same as multifamily. To support this approach, Wan Bridge is increasingly leveraging proprietary technology (AiWB Smart Construction) to streamline processes like procurement, budgeting and progress tracking and helping reduce friction across day-to-day operations.”
Wan Bridge, in partnership with North Texas developer Centurion American Development Group, recently delivered Frontera Shores Townhomes, a 201-unit BTR project in the northern Dallas suburb of Lewisville. The company is also nearing completion of The Reserve at Red Oak, a 166-unit BTR project on the southern outskirts of Dallas.
Some traditional multifamily developers in Texas have openly declared 2026 (and possibly parts of 2027) to be quiet years for new starts in order to allow existing supply to burn off. But Qiao says that given BTR residents’ tendency to shelter in place, as well as the fact that the sector is less crowded in terms of competitors, Wan Bridge does not necessarily have to do the same.
“While others may pause development activity, Wan Bridge believes the current environment presents an opportunity to position projects for delivery into a significantly less competitive market,” says Qiao. “By aligning development timing with expected supply contraction, we aim to capture future rent growth while continuing to scale efficiently through technology and disciplined execution.”
“Some strategic investors believe in this sector and are not looking for short-term returns and are still building their pipeline,” he concludes. “Real estate is cyclical and will always have downtimes, and right now could be the perfect time to build because the supply boom occurred in the past two to three years, and supply is decreasing dramatically in 2026 and 2027. So we can build new communities and deliver product when there is very little competition in 2028 and 2029, when investors can see rent growth.”
— This article originally appeared in the June 2026 issue of Texas Real Estate Business magazine.