Skilled labor shortages, scarcity of buildable lots, home prices continue to rise incrementally and Millennials need to find places to rent vs. buy
As articulated in an article by CNBC, the foreclosure market has narrowed with distressed and foreclosed properties accounting for only 2% of total home sales today. This is down from the historic high of 49% which was recorded back in March 2009 during the housing crash, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Building Permits Hit a HIgh
Since the crash, most housing markets recovered. But during the same period the stock market surged, delivering returns in excess of 200-500%. Now, stock investors are looking to take some of those profits and reinvest them into assets that will continue to deliver an acceptable rate of return.
According to the same CNBC article, the demand for built-to-rent properties is strong enough that one group is looking to leverage this demand into an IPO in order to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to build rental homes. The model represents the concept of building homes in a contiguous track in order to be able to make property management easier.
Along the Northeast Corridor train route in New Jersey, there are multiple construction projects building rental properties by the hundreds, as in the cases of Matawan and Avenel. In the Aberdeen/Matawan area four new housing developments are the culmination of a decades-long process to find new purpose for underutilized lots located near the train station. The Link at Aberdeen Station is a new mixed-use gated community, features studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments ranging in price from $1,735 to $2,405.
Adjacent cities such as Harrison located just across the river from Newark, are joining the renovation movement. Harrison is overhauling its train station to the tune of $265 million and given birth to a couple hundred new rental properties with proximity close to the train station, a quick 25 minute commute to downtown Manhattan.
Even Toll Brothers indicates that they’re going to begin to make similar type of construction Investments moving forward and linear, the nation’s largest home builder is experimenting with the same build to rent model