D.R. Horton has sold 100 detached Build-to-Rent homes in Leesburg to Chicago-based home-rental operator.
Berkadia brokered the sale of the Lake Griffin Reserve subdivision to Kairos Living for $27.2 million — approximately $270,000 per lot. This is the first bulk purchase in the market for Kairos, which owned about 20 rental properties throughout Central Florida before closing the deal with D.R. Horton.
Lake Griffin Reserve, built in 2024, is located on 19.25 acres between Bentley Road and U.S. Highway 441 in Leesburg. Homes in the community are 1,896 square feet on average.
Brett Moss, managing director of investment sales for Berkadia, said all homes in the development are on 40-foot lots and come in three models for prospective renters to select between. Options include a five-bedroom three-bath model, a four-bedroom two-bath model and a three-bedroom two-bath model.
Upon closure of the sale, Moss said, the property was about 70% occupied.
“The deal there is the group that bought it, you get to figure out how get to take those numbers to 95 percent,” he said.
According to Moss, the largest draw for renters searching for a BTR home — many of whom are older than conventional apartment seekers — is the space a detached house can provide.
“It tends to be a more mature resident demographic from an age perspective,” he said. “So I think the biggest amenity here is that we have full detached homes with kind of fenced in back yards and you’re not sharing walls with any other residents above or beside you.”
There’s been an “evolution” in BTR homes, Moss said, their rise in popularity related to capital institutions choosing exposure in BTR in recent years.
Moss said 39,000 BTR homes were completed nationwide in 2024, citing a report from rental home listing platform Point2Homes, a 15% increase from 2023.
In the report, Orlando is listed seventh among metro areas nationally with the most BTR units in the pipeline at 2,968 units. National BTR inventory, Moss said, has gone from 107,000 units five years ago to over 217,000 units by this year.
With an increasing number of Americans unable to acquire “meaningful scale”, Moss said supporting BTR and communities like Lake Griffin Reserve could help people secure living situations previously inaccessible to them.
“The thesis makes a ton of sense and there will be some mistakes along the way,” he said. “But the whole strategy seems to fit the aging demographic of the U.S. population, a matriculation of life of the U.S. population.”
Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at jwilkins@orlandosentinel.com or 407-754-4980. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook and LinkedIn.
