As the U.S. moves forward into a post-pandemic world, eyes are on the changing residential real estate market, by those looking to see the impact of rising interest rates. Less visible, but of growing interest, is the involvement of institutional investors in the single-family home rental (SFR) sector of the market—that was recently featured on 60 Minutes.
Seattle based startup Picket Homes sees opportunities in the SFR sector—which investors affirmed via the company’s recent Series A round.
“The venture capital we’ve attracted reflects confidence that demand for single-family rental homes will continue to accelerate and that our SFR-focused technology and services will continue to exceed the expectations of both the investors and residents we seek to serve,” says Lemaitre, CEO of Picket Homes, Inc., and its subsidiaries, Inertia Realty Services and ElaraOne Home Management.
The real estate tech startup’s proprietary platform addresses three areas:
- improvement of the residential experience of both investor and renter,
- accelerating investors’ portfolio growth, and
- streamlining portfolio management within the single-family rental market.
Lemaitre, is one of four co-founders that includes: CSO Charlie Mullan, Chairman Jim Hart, and CTO Q Shay. The founding team brings years of entrepreneurial experience to their startup, as well as a range of talent.
The SFR sector is gaining institutional investor interest that Lemaitre explains, “These homes represent a highly stable asset class that can offer strong, long-term returns for the investor community.”
Picket Homes touts the unique features and capabilities of its platform which combines integrated technologies and tenured teams who are dedicated exclusively to SFR investor and resident services. Their startup business model, once out of the gate in 2020, gained immediate validation through its explosive revenue growth. The startup has an annualized revenue growth of more than 35% month over month in the last 12 months with a 50%+ month over month growth in the last six months.
Picket Home’s Decision Science platform was built to meet key needs such as giving investors the tools to acquire and manage single-family homes across multiple markets, while most importantly, fitting each client’s own investment strategies. This is achieved via a combination of advanced data science, institutional-quality modeling, and local market insights. Clients receive listings on and off the MLS based on their specific investment criteria that is complemented with custom return analyses for every home.
Following its seed funding, the real estate tech startup quickly gained the support of Park City-based RET Ventures, a venture capital firm that specializes in high-growth, early-stage real estate technology companies. Now with more funds in hand, Picket Homes’ founding team will work to accelerate growth and to amplify the reach of Picket’s full-stack investor services platform.
“But equally important to us, single-family rentals can offer outstanding benefits for the growing number of Americans who would rather rent a well-managed home than take on the financial burden and inflexibility of a 30-year mortgage,” says LeMaistre.
The real estate tech startup’s mission is to fundamentally improve every aspect of the single-family home rental (SFR) experience for investors and residents. Their platform enables investors to quickly and confidently deploy capital into the SFR sector across multiple markets and efficiently manage homes to higher standards.
“We want to help more people live where they want and love where they live, and that’s what continues to drive us,” said LeMaistre. “As more capital comes into this space, we want residents to benefit. That can and should be the promise of SFR.”
