Housing market trends fuel single-family home rental growth

By ALEX VEIGA
AP Business Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Homebuilders and other real estate companies are increasingly betting that would-be homebuyers frustrated with a shortage of homes for sale and runaway prices will settle for renting their slice of the American Dream. Homebuilders have stepped up construction this year of new houses being built for rent. In the third quarter, they broke ground on 16,000 single-family homes slated to become rentals _ the highest quarterly total of housing starts for such homes going back to at least 1990, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Some of the nation’s biggest homebuilders, such as PulteGroup and D.R. Horton, are looking to take advantage of the trend.