— By Bendix Anderson —Empty nesters and millennials with children are increasingly drawn to new subdivisions of build-to-rent (BTR) houses for lifestyle and financial reasons. These professionally managed BTR homes come in many shapes and sizes. For a growing family, a new three- or four-bedroom rental house might be the ideal fit. Renters who don’t need a lot of space, but who value private parking and a modest backyard, can move into a one- or two-bedroom cottage-style home. These properties provide more living space and privacy than a typical apartment and at a more affordable cost than a for-sale home. New BTR developments of single-family rental (SFR) homes are finding renters in every region of the country. Developers define “BTR” in different ways, but all of them create new subdivisions of single-family homes offered as rentals. Urban Townhouses Draw FamiliesIn April, workers finished the first units at Oxenfree at WeHo, a new development of SFR townhouses in the Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood of Nashville. In May, the paint was finally dry on the model unit. By the beginning of June, work had finished on 10 new single-family townhouses. In the past month, Oxenfree has hosted nearly 50 in-person tours and recorded more than 57,000 website visits. “There’s nothing else like it,” says Cliff Payne, chief investment officer of build-to-rent for Chicago-based Core Spaces. “You can’t rent a three-bedroom townhome with our level of amenities and on …
