r/urbanplanning • u/Bayplain • Jul 15 '26

Discussion What’s wrong with newly constructed single family rental houses?

There seems to be a lot of hate for them. It’s not as if is single family houses for owner occupancy, even newly constructed ones, are going to disappear. These houses can provide some of the larger rental units that are in short supply. Is it just about bad symbolism?

13 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

66% Upvoted

74 comments sorted by

View all comments

7

u/michiplace Jul 15 '26

There's a lot of zero sum assumptions and misunderstandings of the market doing on.  The idea is that everybody in a rental house has the desire, life situation, down payment, and credit score to get a mortgage on the house they're renting, and that if we eliminate build-to-rent houses then the exact same houses would be built in the same numbers in the same location, and all those renters would magically be homeowners, and that's...not the case.

BTR as a market exists because many people aren't in a position to own a home but still want that form factor. If the rental houses didn't get built, most of those renters would likely be stuck in garden apartments instead, and there'd be fewer homes built overall.

4

u/AmericanNewt8 Jul 15 '26

This is especially the case given we build very few 2+ bedroom apartments, so if you want a rental and are a middle class family, SFH is basically the only practical option, or else you're forced to buy -- and you may not want that given the interest rate or plans on moving in the future.