While the market has cooled significantly since the initial boom period post pandemic, the build-to-rent (BTR) sector remains an opportunity to capture pent-up demand and provide affordability missing in today’s housing market. With a complex backdrop and significant tailwinds behind it, panelists during “A Builder’s Guide to Navigating the Built-for-Rent Boom” at the 2026 International Builders Show (IBS) highlighted the opportunities and challenges facing the sector moving forward.
While BTR can be defined concisely—single-site, purpose built, professionally managed housing—it can manifest in a range of product applications from single-family detached homes and horizontal cottage apartments to duplexes and townhomes. Given the affordability challenges, the asset class is emerging as a potential missing middle housing solution as well as a viable option for renters by choice who value flexibility and a maintenance-free lifestyle.
“The unusual shift that we’ve seen is that there are people who could afford to buy a home but are choosing to rent,” Alexis Helmick, associate development manager for BTR Landmark Properties said during the panel in Orlando. “These could be empty nesters who are downsizing, it could be a family moving to a different area, or somebody who is trying to time the market. Sometimes, people just find that the cost of rent versus own is favorable toward renting.”
Jared Ford, president of BTR and multifamily for Catamount Constructors, shared that the pent-up demand for BTR as an asset class supports growth to as much as 50% of the overall rental pool by 2028.
“Say for a brief bit the past two years when macroeconomic conditions constrained all development, there is pent-up BTR demand that has existed for quite some time,” Ford said.
Zoning, Planning, and Regulations
While there are demand tailwinds supporting the BTR sector, regulatory burdens, negative perceptions, and disparate zoning means operators face many headwinds. Given the asset class is relatively new, Chris Grady, principal, senior director of land planning for KEPHART, shared that visually representing communities is the easiest way to win over skeptical city commissioners and NIMBY opposition.
“It is all about sharing a vision. You need imagery, you can share the community design, and the commitment to the product,” Grady said. “You need to underscore the importance of attainability for this missing middle. There is a lot of education that goes on in the beginning that is quite necessary.”
Helmick said operators can take the educator piece one step further by helping define what terms like build-to-rent and paired homes mean.
“When you say a term, you don’t know how people will interpret that term to mean. When you can show them something, they can get on the same page with you and it helps a lot,” Helmick said. “The education component is important so [stakeholders] can understand what you are building instead of what image they may have in their mind.”
Helmick and Ford also noted that adding unique elements to the planning process of communities can help local stakeholders overcome the negative perceptions they may hold about renters and BTR.
“People want to see a local touch and not that you’re building the same thing everywhere,” Helmick said. “If you have a little bit of local flavor, it makes a huge difference.”
Design, Differentiation, and Dogs
The panelists discussed how operators in the sector are in a constant process of balancing product differentiation, appealing designs, and functional, scalable solutions.
“Everyone is trying to figure out the balance between creative design specific to a site and how that ties into local flavor with the efficiency of being able to replicate it,” Ford said. “The exterior elevations are the question and the answer. You can use the same floorplan, but you have to have enough variety in elevations to show differentiation within a project but also differentiation from what is across the street and other things in your portfolio.”
While community centers, leasing offices, and pools are important amenities in a BTR communities, one element is becoming near-essential: meeting the needs of pet owners.
“Sixty-six percent of Americans own a pet. BTR renters have a higher share of pet ownership because these are people who want to be able to let their dog out, they want more open space, they want the pet owner experience that generally comes with homeownership,” Helmick said. “I can’t overstate the importance of pet ownership for the BTR renter.”
With regards to other amenities, Grady and Helmick said the location of a site will dictate a lot of what developers need to consider.
“You see multifamily projects with a single, large clubhouse. Instead of a single, large 7,000 to 10,000 square foot building, we include what we call an amenity campus,” Grady said. “The scale of the amenity is similar to the adjacent home.”
In more suburban locations, BTR operators may be able to get away with fewer amenities. However, in infill locations in close proximity to traditional multifamily apartments, Helmick said there is an “amenity war.”
“You need to have something other than just ‘the home is the amenity,’” she said.
In addition to community amenities, Helmick, Ford, and Grady stressed the importance of considering elements of the home many for-sale builders do not consider. Since a BTR community includes a maintenance team, the location, orientation, and accessibility of HVAC and electrical boxes are important. Additionally, community design must also consider the visibility of leasing centers and how trash and recycling removal will be managed.
“When we are doing build-to-rent and converting from a builder mindset, we have to think about ongoing operations and maintenance of the asset,” Helmick. “Rather than we build it, we sell it, and it’s not our problem anymore. When it’s BTR, it is your problem. There are things that are very important to think about on the front end.”
