Home / Guides / Build-to-rent
For investors and owner-occupants
Build-to-rent in Charlotte, at the scale of a lot.
Not a two-hundred-home subdivision. A single-family rental, a duet or a few townhomes on an in-town lot, designed and built by a firm that has built and kept its own. If you own the lot, or want help finding one, start here.
What we mean
Small buildings, held for rent.
Build-to-rent in Charlotte usually means institutional: Berkadia counted a pipeline of about 4,100 build-to-rent units in the metro for 2025 and 2026, most of them townhome communities built by national developers for funds. That is not what we do, and some of those communities have leased up more slowly than their underwriting assumed.
What we do is the lot-sized version. A craftsman single-family home on St Paul Street, built in 2024 and rented. A board-and-batten duet on Condon Street, built in 2025 and rented. Both designed in-house, both built ground-up by Connor with the trades we use on every job, both still ours. When an investor asks us to build a rental, we are building the thing we chose to build for ourselves.
How it goes
Numbers first, then drawings.
1. The lot. Send the address. We tell you what the zoning allows (one home, a duet, a small set of townhomes), what the setbacks and trees do to the footprint, and whether any of it sits in a floodplain, before you spend anything.
2. The budget. A written budget range in the first conversation, then a line-item budget as Kate designs it, so the rent you need and the cost to build are on one page. No per-square-foot figure that evaporates later.
3. The build. Permits, engineering, a fixed schedule, Connor on site, a written update every week. Finishes chosen for tenants: durable, cleanable, easy to turn over.
4. Handoff. Punch list, warranty, and a builder you can still call in year three. How you lease and manage it is yours; we will tell you what we learned doing it.
Proof
The ones we built and kept.
Questions
Do you build rental property for investors?
Yes, on your lot, in Charlotte's in-town neighborhoods: a single-family rental, a duet or duplex, or a small set of townhomes. We design it in-house, give you a line-item budget before drawings are finished, and build it with the licensed general contractor on site. We have built and kept two of our own, so we have underwritten the same decision you are making.
What have you built and held yourselves?
2002 St Paul Street, a craftsman single-family home completed in 2024, and 1121 Condon Street, a modern farmhouse duet completed in 2025. Both were designed in-house, built ground-up, and are rented rather than sold. They are on the projects page.
What does a build-to-rent project cost?
It depends on the lot and the building, and we will not quote a per-square-foot number that falls apart at the budget meeting. What we do is give you a written budget range in the first conversation and a line-item budget before design is finished, so the rent you need and the cost to build are on the same page before anyone draws.
Is build-to-rent still a good idea in Charlotte?
The large build-to-rent communities on the edges of the metro have had slower lease-ups than their developers assumed, which is public knowledge. A duet or a few townhomes on an in-town lot near Uptown is a different product: a renter pool that already lives in the surrounding apartments and wants a garage and a yard or a rooftop. We would rather tell you a lot does not work than build something that sits empty.
Can I live in one side and rent the other?
Yes. A duet or duplex where the owner occupies one unit is one of the more common things we are asked to design, and it changes the financing and the tax treatment in ways worth talking to your lender and accountant about early.
Who manages it after you build it?
That is yours to decide. Kate ran short-term rentals from 2018 before Blue Arrow and can tell you plainly what the operating side looks like; we do not manage property for clients.
Contact
Own a lot, or looking for one?
Send the address or the neighborhood. We will tell you what it supports before you spend anything.