Do you know the fastest growing housing tenure in the United States?
Renting single-family homes.
More and more families, especially those with children, now live in the type of lower-density, often suburban houses we associate with homeownership. More children live in these types of homes than any other. These homes can be a great source of opportunity, including bigger homes in new communities. They can also expose families to serious vulnerabilities – they have the least amount of protection compared to other kinds of renters, and are increasingly owned by powerful corporate landlords.
This growth of single-family rentals, or SFR in houser talk, is something I’ve been chronicling for a while. Check out these articles to learn more about what is happening, and why it matters. Click here for a deeper dive into housing tenure, or my work on housing vulnerability.
+ 2020. Deirdre Pfeiffer, Alex Schafran & Jake Wegmann. Vulnerability and opportunity: Making sense of the rise in single-family rentals in US neighbourhoods. Housing Studies, 1-21.
+ 2017. Alex Schafran, Desiree Fields and Zac Taylor. Wall Street landlords are chasing the American dream – here’s what it means for families. The Conversation, 7 Sep., 2017
+ 2016. Desiree Fields, Rajkumar Kohli and Alex Schafran. The emerging geography of rental-backed securitization. San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank Working Paper, 2016-02, January 2016
Alex Schafran 