Jeff Bezos-Backed SFR Investment Site Sees Doubling Of Demand In Past Month
Seattle-based Arrived Homes, a single-family real estate investment platform, has funded $11M in houses in the past 30 days, twice the number it funded in all of Q1 2022, amid ramped-up demand for single-family investment.
The company, which is backed by Jeff Bezos' Bezos Expeditions, has doubled in investors over the last two months, Benzinga reported. Its growth is partially credited to the fact the site is one of the few investment platforms open to nonaccredited investors, who can fund rental houses for a minimum of $100.
The site has seen such dramatic demand that last month, a launch of 12 new properties received a torrent of traffic that crashed the website, and another batch later in May was funded in eight minutes. Arrived has funded $30M in properties this year; it funded $18.5M in the last eight months of 2021.
As of May, Arrived had funded 102 properties in 16 metros in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. It is set to offer more rentals in Florida, Texas, Nevada and Indiana.
Arrived closed a $25M Series A funding round in May, led by Forerunner Ventures, with returning investors including Bezos Expeditions, along with Good Friends, which is run by the co-founders of Warby Parker; Spencer Rascoff, the former CEO of Zillow; and Core Innovation Capital, among others.
"Today's investors want to be empowered through the self-service tools they've grown to love, like Coinbase and Robinhood," Forerunner Ventures partner Brian O'Malley said in a release.
"Arrived Homes is the only platform that allows all types of retail investors to get the inflation-hedged, cash-flow generating benefits of real estate, which will be increasingly important as debt continues to underperform and the crypto and equity markets suffer from increased volatility."
Though single-family rentals aren't new, the industry has experienced rampant demand in past months as rents rise and homeownership becomes more difficult and expensive for Americans. Single-family rents have steadily risen for more than a year, and new developments of rentals are popping up steadily in Sun Belt markets and elsewhere.
