Dallas-Fort Worth is Second-Best Market for Built-to-Rent

Built-to-rent communities gave America’s renters the comfort of a single-family home without the costs of ownership during the pandemic.

The boom in single-family rental development is showing no signs of slowing, and North Texas’ pipeline is one of the country’s most robust.

Dallas-Fort Worth’s built-to-rent pipeline ranks second among U.S. cities with almost 8,500 units in the pipeline, according to Point2Homes. It’s second only to Phoenix’s 13,000 upcoming units.

The list matched Northmarq’s 2024 ranking, which also put Dallas second to Phoenix.

The Big D makes up nearly eight percent of the country’s 111,000 single-family rentals under construction.

To see where they’re all being built, look west.

More than one in five of the units under construction in DFW will be located in Fort Worth. Nearly 2,000 units are in the pipeline in Cowtown, followed by northern Dallas suburb McKinney, which will soon be home to 1,300 more built-to-rent units.

The success of the product has developers thinking big.

Farmers Branch-based JMJ Development teamed up with St. Augustine, Florida-based DLP Capital to build one of the nation’s largest single-family rental communities in Fort Worth. Orchard Farms, at 3000 Shelby Road, will have 643 units, the report said.

Houston, Austin and San Antonio rank fifth, sixth and eighth, respectively, giving Texas the most upcoming built-to-rent units of any state. There are 4,600 units in Houston’s pipeline, 4,300 in development in Austin, and about 3,000 units coming to San Antonio.

That adds up to 22,000 units in development across the state.

In dissecting Texas’ popularity for this product, the report points to job growth in the state as well as fewer regulations when it comes to development.