To date, NRHC members have entered a number of markets across the U.S., including: Atlanta, Miami, Tampa, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento, Orlando, Seattle, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Minneapolis and Las Vegas.

Our members largely avoid the “hottest” housing markets, where rents tend to be highest, instead focusing on areas that are well-positioned for growth and have a large population of working families in search of quality, spacious rental housing options.

Many of the homes purchased by NRHC members are not available for purchase through the usual channels. Typically, these homes have gone through the foreclosure process with a bank or mortgage servicer and are sold as-is, for cash only, through trustee sales.

NRHC members typically buy three-bedroom, two-bathroom single-family homes priced at the mid-range of the local market.

The renovation process typically takes about four to six weeks; however, in some cases it can take a few more weeks, especially for older homes. After that, a home is ready to be leased.

Homes purchased by an NRHC member typically undergo extensive renovations, often equivalent to 10 percent of the home’s value. Data show that average home renovation ranges from $15,000 to $25,000.

Before we move into a market, we strive to ensure the right team and tools are in place to acquire homes and also to lease, manage and maintain the properties to the highest standards. Underpinning all this is the industry’s goal of hiring top professionals, ranging from real estate agents to HVAC experts, to support our homes and communities, and leveraging innovative technological solutions to streamline property management across a given market. NRHC member associates understand each market and all the idiosyncrasies, patterns and local trends, which enable us to serve residents and prospective residents extremely well.

Single-family homes for rent have been part of the U.S. housing landscape for decades. Even before the financial crisis, an estimated 12 million homes were rented out by their owners. The market for single-family rental homes really began to take off before the crisis, in 2006, when institutions began bringing professional management and a long-term focus to this industry, enabled by the broad-level regional and national expertise that comes from being an institutional operator and the ways in which scale enables property management cost savings.

Serving the industry at the highest level meant there was an opportunity to create professionally serviced, national single-family rental platforms, which mirrors what happened in the multifamily market 20 years ago.

Today, institutional investors make up 2 percent of the overall single-family rental market. By comparison, institutional investors own 55 percent of multifamily rental units.

As demand grew for single-family rentals, NRHC members saw an opportunity to raise the bar and create a differentiated single-family rental experience. We strive to offer renters the highest quality and service through homes that are professionally maintained by management teams and backed by institutional owners who provide stability, peace of mind and the highest servicing standards. Our members’ scale and access to leading vendors and service providers allows them to streamline the property management process, leading to improved financial performance and a superior rental experience.

As with most rentals, rates are based on a) the value of the home and b) local market conditions. If our member companies unilaterally raise rents beyond what local markets can handle, they will lose residents and their businesses will struggle. In comparison to rental costs for a comparable multifamily apartment unit, the rental rate typically charged for a single-family home with an average square footage of 1,800 feet, a full yard and all the benefits of a house is generally lower.

NRHC members encourage their renters to be active, responsible members of their communities. In fact, many of the residents that rent our homes are renting in communities they have already lived in for many years.

First-time homebuyers are challenged in the current housing market, but it is not due to the growth of the single-family rental industry. Institutional investors are no longer buying a significant portion of homes directly off of the MLS. Today, SFR owners’ purchasing is limited to a handful of markets and has slowed considerably from its peak, and it remains a very small part of the overall market.

Institutional SFR owners will never pay the same amount as a first-time homebuyer for the same property. To the extent our members do purchase homes from MLS or MRIS databases, their business model requires them to purchase at a discount from the fair market value to meet their financial performance metrics. If other buyers are willing to pay fair market value, they will beat our member companies every time. Additionally, our members buy homes that require significant repair and rehab — homes that would be unattractive to first-time homebuyers and oftentimes do not even qualify for financing.

First-time homebuyers are indeed challenged in the market, but not because they are competing with deep-pocketed investors. Instead, there are larger market forces at play: first, housing supply is at an all-time low, meaning there are fewer homes to purchase and not enough to meet demand; and second, home prices are at record highs, pricing many first-time homebuyers out of the market altogether.

We are committed to building national, long-term businesses that cater to the portion of the market that wants the benefits of a single-family home but can’t or doesn’t want to purchase a home. Although our members continue to refine their portfolios to support continued financial success, they have proven they are in it for the long haul and selling all our homes at once would work against these goals. We strive to provide high-quality, professionally managed rental properties now and well into the future, just as the institutions that entered the multifamily market more than 20 years ago helped create higher standards across the industry. We have no interest in making “quick flips.”

While our members own homes in markets across the country, they have property management staff on the ground in each individual market, and open entire offices in many of their leading markets, allowing our members to combine the personalized local service of a mom-and-pop landlord with the operating knowledge and efficiency of a large-scale rental home company.

NRHC members also use the latest technological solutions — such as keyless self-showing for prospective tenants and the ability to pay rent and submit maintenance requests online — to provide service to their renters.