D.R. Horton Offloads Houston Built-to-Rent to Four Corner

Four Corners Development Group is on a roll picking up built-to-rent properties owned by D.R. Horton.

The New York-based investor bought its third rental home community from D.R. Horton in six months. Financing for the three trades was arranged by Polaris Funding, according to a press release from the Lakewood, New Jersey-based mortgage brokerage.

For this deal, Four Corners picked up The Oaks at Grand West Apartments, a built-to-rent community at 10415 Lancaster Forest Lane. The firm paid $36 million for the 290,000-square-foot, 147-unit rental home community built in 2024, according to the release. The deal works out to about $245,000 per unit.

Nate Hyman, founder of Polaris, arranged financing for the deal, a $25.2 million loan from New York-based Encore Finance Group, loan documents show.

“This went very [smoothly] and had a closing period of under 60 days because of Polaris’ relationship with the lender and the understanding we have for the BTR space,” Hyman said in an email.

Hyman also arranged the financing for Four Corners’ $55.2 million purchase of two built-to-rent communities in Slidell, Louisiana, totaling 248 units. The trade worked out to $222,400 per unit.

The Oaks at Grand West Apartments features three- and four-bedroom rental homes that range in size from 1,800 square feet to 2,000 square feet, each with laundry facilities, a two-car garage, covered patio and fenced-in backyard, according to the property’s website. Shared amenities include a dog park and playground. Rents at the property start at about $2,400 per month.

Built-to-rent properties, which offer some of the same perks as a single-family home, soared in popularity during the pandemic when remote work and lockdowns kept people confined to their homes.

These rental properties also offer an alternative to vertical living for would-be homebuyers kept on the sidelines by the highly competitive seller’s market of 2020 and 2021 and then the high interest rates that have plagued the market since 2022.

The trend has really taken off in Texas, where nearly 22,000 built-to-rent units were in the pipeline in the beginning of 2025 — the most of any state in the country, according to a report from Point2Homes. At the city level, Phoenix led the nation, followed by Dallas, Atlanta and Charlotte. Houston ranked fifth, with 4,613 units under construction at the beginning of last year.