BUILD-TO-RENT
By Tracy Owens
When John Leonard and his wife, Melanie, moved to Ashburn from Leesburg in April, they wanted to wait out the wild housing market before they tried to buy.
Leonard, who works in software deployment for Microsoft, wasn’t looking for a cookie-cutter rental home or apartment.
“I wanted something unique,” he said.
He and Melanie, who works in finance, happened upon CityHouse Ashburn Station, near the intersection of Waxpool Road and Ashburn Village Boulevard. The couple met with the onsite property management team, and when they got a load of a home with a rooftop terrace, they were in.
“It is amazing up there,” Leonard says of the terrace. “It was good vibes.”
Rooftop terraces – available in some homes at CityHouse Ashburn Station – are just one of the amenities in this build-to-rent community of townhomes. You read that correctly – not the more familiar build-to-own concept, but a new kind of project that is growing in popularity: the build-to-rent community.
“They are becoming fairly popular throughout the country,” said Mike Severin, a real estate broker with The Ashburn Group.
In a build-to-rent development, a developer constructs individual homes to be rented, not purchased. For someone looking for something outside an apartment complex, but not ready to buy, it has the advantages of single-family-home living with the added bonus of professional property management.
In addition to rooftop terraces, many of the build-to-rent residences have luxurious interior finishes, smart-home features, enclosed carports, off-street parking and more.
“Many people in Ashburn are in transition,” Severin said. “They are not looking for that permanent move. They need something that’s ‘in between’ – that will work for a year or two. This gives them an option to rent something that’s more appealing.”
This could include families saving money to buy a house, families downsizing but not ready to leave Ashburn and government employees in the area for just a few years between assignments.
“[Ashburn] is a high-growth market, which we love,” said Mark Taylor. He is the managing director of CityHouse Ashburn’s developer, American Real Estate Partners, based in Tysons. Ashburn’s high average household income – about $154,000 – and growing need for housing made this the perfect place for CityHouse Ashburn Station.
Buying a home in this market is more difficult now due to high interest rates, Taylor said. The cost for a similar Ashburn home might be $600,000. With $60,000 down, you would need a household income of at least $160,000 to qualify for a mortgage and would be spending nearly $5,000 a month in principal, interest and taxes.
“That’s a heavy lift,” he said.
Taylor says that residents also get “more bang for their buck” in a build-to-rent townhome development because there aren’t the kind of non-income-generating spaces an apartment complex might have – such as hallways, leasing offices or indoor gyms and clubrooms.
For developers and investors, a build-to-rent community of townhomes gives a faster return on investment than apartment homes. American Real Estate Partners completed 100 homes at CityHouse and is leasing them before finishing the final 100 or so units in first quarter 2025. That’s a different timeline from a 200-unit apartment development, which might take 15 to 18 months to complete and is accruing construction costs until it is filled.
Young families, single professionals and empty-nesters downsizing are among those who have leased homes at CityHouse Ashburn Station. Some are new to the area, and some are moving from elsewhere in the area. What Taylor and the on-site management team hear from most people who move there is that they are looking for “a good quality of life.”
People want to live somewhere they enjoy, and they want to feel at home there, Taylor says. That’s why the language the developers and property managers use is about “home and community,” not rentals and units.
Leonard says he and his wife have made friends in the neighborhood. He loves sitting on the rooftop terrace at night and feeling the breeze and looking across at the mountains in the distance during the day.
He also enjoys coming home at the end of the day and seeing neighbors hanging out together.
“It’s a very welcoming community,” he said. “This is home.”
Tracy Owens is a former magazine editor who writes about arts, businesses and people in the Southeast. Her work has appeared in Salon, Gulfshore Life, Islandia Journal and many other publications.