Build to Rent — How America Became a Nation of Renters

The American dream still includes a yard, a garage, a front door that belongs to you, and a neighborhood where your kids can grow up. What's changed is the math behind getting there. Home prices are near all-time highs. Mortgage rates have stayed elevated. The median home sale price hit $414,000 in April 2025, the 22nd consecutive month of year-over-year price increases, a according to the National Association of Realtors. And for millions of working families, the gap between wanting to own and being able to own has never been wider. That gap is not closing, and it's created one of the fastest growing residential real estate categories in the country, build-to-rent, or BTR. It's exactly what it sounds like, communities of single-family or townhome-style homes built from the ground up specifically for long-term renters. Not apartments, not condos, actual homes with yards, private entrances, and garages designed for families who want the single-family living experience but who are choosing not to buy. BTR home starts hit over 130,000 in 2024. That's a 134% increase compared to 2019, according to major industry research. Institutional investment in build-to-rent reached $14.8 billion in 2024. That's a 27% increase year over year. This is not a new concept that might work someday. It's an established and rapidly scaling asset class that institutional capital is already moving into aggressively. Here's the important thing to understand about build-to-rent demand. It's not driven by people who can't find an apartment. It's driven by people who specifically want single-family living and are making a deliberate choice about how to get it. Some of them can't afford to buy. Home prices and the carrying cost of a mortgage have pushed home ownership out of reach for a large portion of the population, including many people with solid incomes. A family earning $120,000 a year might technically qualify for a mortgage, but the monthly payment on a median-priced home today takes a significantly larger share of their income than it would have 5 5 years ago. But some of them are choosing not to buy even when they could. They want flexibility. They don't want to be responsible for maintenance and repairs. They value the ability to relocate if a career opportunity comes up. They watch friends carry underwater mortgages or navigate expensive property issues, and they're making a different calculation. The emerging 50-year mortgage is another signal worth watching. As lenders explore longer loan terms to bring monthly payments down to manageable levels, the effective cost of homeownership extends further and further into the future. For many families, renting a well-built single-family home in a quality BTR community becomes the more rational financial decision, not a compromise, a choice. From an investment standpoint, build-to-rent has several characteristics that make it attractive. Tenants in BTR communities tend to be stable and long-term. Families who choose a BTR community are not looking for a 6-month apartment. They're looking for a home. That translates to lower turnover, more consistent rent collection, and better care of the property. The resident profile is different from a traditional apartment, and so is the retention rate. Institutional capital has already recognized this. Pensions, insurers, and large private equity firms have been rotating significant capital into BTR because they The demand profile is highly predictable and the fundamentals are strong. When that level of institutional validation shows up in a sector, it's a signal worth paying attention to. And Build-to-Rent is not directly competing with home builders for the same buyer. The renter who wants single-family living without ownership is a distinct market. They're not choosing between renting and buying. They've already decided not to buy. That makes BTR demand more stable and less vulnerable to interest rate shifts than home builder sale volume. We apply the same necessity test to build-to-rent that we apply to every asset class. Will people still need single-family rental housing in a recession? Yes. If anything, affordability constraints in a downturn push more people toward renting rather than buying, which strengthens BTR demand rather than weakening it. Is demand structural rather than cyclical? Yes. The drivers— affordability gaps, lifestyle preference, workforce mobility— are not tied to economic sentiment. Does it cash flow conservatively underwritten? That's always the test. If we can't make the numbers work without relying on optimistic assumptions, we don't invest. BTR is one of the newer additions to our strategy, and we are selective about the markets and operators we partner with. But the demand story is compelling. The institutional validation is clear, and it fits the philosophy we built everything on. America is changing, not because people stopped wanting to own a home. Most of them still do, but because the path to ownership has gotten longer, more expensive, and for millions of families, it no longer makes financial sense in the near term. Built to Rent exists to serve those families with dignity, real homes, real communities, real quality of life. And that demand is gonna grow for years. That's the story behind why we invest in it. And it's one more piece of what backs your Freedom Notes investment. Go to chatwithfreedom.com to learn more about our portfolio, about how we think about protecting your capital across all 4 of these asset classes. I hope this was helpful, and I hope we have the opportunity to work together.