HomeUnion has announced that it has added Atlanta, Ga.; Davenport, Iowa/Ill.; Huntsville, Ala.; Jacksonville, Fla., and, Orlando, Fla., to its list of active investment markets. Investors can now find and purchase pre-vetted, SFR investment properties in these markets on the company’s secure Web site. These metropolitan areas were identified as prime investment markets by HomeUnion’s proprietary model that factors in variables such as home prices, vacancies, historical income trends, employment, local economy and population growth amongst other criteria. Each offers favorable cap rates (the relationship between rental income and purchase price). HomeUnion projects that the economies in each of these markets will continue to support a base for SFR investments.
“There are an increasing number of renters in the U.S. A recent report released by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies said that renter households rose to a 20-year high of 35.5 percent in 2014, and the Urban Institute expects that level to continue to rise until at least 2030,” said Don Ganguly, CEO of HomeUnion. “We believe this increasing demand for residential rental space will enable SFR investments to continue producing high yields. The growth in the renter population, coupled with the low interest rates offered by investment products like bonds and CDs, explains why SFR investments continue to grow as an asset class and increasingly attract the attention of investors.”
Once a new market has been identified, HomeUnion hires real estate professionals, with an intimate working knowledge of the neighborhoods, property values, and rent rates, to identify good investments. These professionals are also the local representatives for HomeUnion investors.
In addition to these new metropolitan areas, HomeUnion lists investment properties in 13 other markets including: Austin, Texas; Birmingham, Ala.; Chicago; Cincinnati; Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas; Houston, Texas; Indianapolis; Minneapolis, Minn.; Memphis, Tenn.; San Antonio, Texas; and Southern California.
HomeUnion allows individuals to invest remotely in single-family real estate, an asset class that was previously not available to the individual investor. With HomeUnion’s guidance, investors choose a property from HomeUnion’s database of vetted investments that best fit their investment needs (income, growth or balanced). HomeUnion manages the acquisition for the owner and handles the ongoing management of the property.
