Single-family rental is a promising investment opportunity

Single-family rental (SFR) homes promise to be a hot commodity in 2022. Investors long to finance or buy them. Families and individuals covet them. Developers are scrambling to find land to build them. Never mind the barrage of negative press in all manner of media, where unsettling news stories trumpet financial dead ends for renters and uncertain blowback for investors.

The bad press may cause grumbles and prompt stakeholders to collectively cringe, but there has been little or no pushback. To the contrary, the relatively new SFR sector — a product born of the 2008 stock market and housing crash — continues to advance at breakneck speed. Every recent industry report, survey or index tracking the real estate market ranks SFR as the fastest-growing asset class, outpacing all others and generating higher-than-expected investor returns. Industry estimates place the value of today’s SFR market at $3.4 trillion — a breathtaking figure when you realize the multifamily mark