AZBEX Leading Market Series Tackles Build-to-Rent–April 8, 2022
Industry professionals attended this event with a panel of experts to discuss the build-to-rent category.
Lance Keller, founder and managing member of Lifestyle Homes, served as moderator. The three-person panel consisted of:
- Jim Belfiore, chief strategist at Keystone Homes;
- Shelby Duplessis, president of land development at Empire Group, and
- Bret Rinehart, residential lot and land advisor at Land Advisors.
Following a brief introduction by BEX Companies Founder and President Rebekah Morris, Keller took the panel into the Q & A.
The first question is one we all seem to be grappling with…how to define it. Seems calling this category build-to-rent is not really a label that identifies these communities to the consumer.
Answers ranged from “horizontal apartments” and a blending of single- and multifamily, Jim Belfiore expressed a desire for a better one for a market sector that usually consists of luxury living units with densities averaging from 10.5-16 units per acre.
Bret Reinhart noted that every developer has slightly different definitions, but that the type of use is also evolving to include not only the traditional one-year tenant lease but to also add in shorter term leasing options that treat units as more an extended-stay facility rather than a primary residence.
Further on in the panel discussion, Lance Keller pointed out that Phoenix is the “world capital of the Build-to-Rent market, having been a launch point for the space since its functional origins around 2010.”
“Nearly all the panelists expressed concern about escalation in the BTR market given the current growth and the declining state of the overall economy.
Reinhart said more people will rent as interest rates rise, but he could not guess where the upper limit would be.
Duplessis said she is confident in the market because renting at that level is a choice, and there is flexibility as a result.”
Read more HERE.
Categorised in: Build to Rent
This post was written by Keystone Homes
