fill current and future demand. Solo East sold out quickly and we need to see more developers come up with similar options for cash-strapped customers. Working Americans and young families need their housing require- ments met, and it is up to the entire real estate investment industry to come up with new and innovative ways to meet this market demand. Builders and developers that can fill this space will succeed in the years to come. •
The additional debt makes pur- chasing a home much more difficult today. Home values seem to have held up well, despite the Covid-19-induced economic slide earlier this year. As the economy improves and incomes are likely to rise again, there is pent-up demand for single-family housing. But, builders continually aim for high-end customers leaving the working-class, middle-class and entry-level buyers with few options. Even rental properties tend to cater to the high-end customer. In Atlanta, for example, 91 percent of multifamily housing projects were aimed at high-end customers in 2015. Millennials, the generation between the ages of 24 and 39, should be in peak home-buying mode. But, they carry the largest share of student debt and it’s often pricing too many people out of the American Dream.
What are the implications for builders and developers? We must continue to look for ways to provide more affordable-housing options that meet the needs of cash- strapped Millennials and working professionals such as teachers, fire fighters, and police officers. Build-to-Rent subdivisions give people a high-quality, single-fam- ily rental home option. Millennials are in family-building mode and even if they can’t afford to own a home, they can still rent something with four sides and a yard for the kids to play. Five years ago, I was a partner in a condo development called Solo East in Nashville, Tenn. This was high-quality housing in an up-and-coming area of one of the hottest real estate markets in the country. It was moderately priced and included high-end amenities such as granite countertops. This type of development, either as a rental or as purchase, is needed to
Bruce McNeilage is the managing member and a co-founder of Kinloch Partners and a partner in Harpeth Development.. He is a passionate
advocate for housing affordability and homeownership, and invests heavily in Nashville, Tennessee, as well as throughout the southeast. Learn more about his projects, including single-family built-to-rent communities and the Solo East and North condominium projects at www.Kinlochpartners.net.
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