Invitation Homes’ $89 million purchase of ResiBuilt brings the building indoors
Homes of Invitations‘ $89 million acquisition ResiBuilt – some of the integration of domestic architecture and procurement table-setters for 2026 – a “small” agreement that could change the rules of engagement and change the balance of competitive power in the two adjacent ecosystems.
Here’s the gist: Single-family rental REITs, with one or two exceptions, have been homebuyers. Single family builders used to be their own sellers.
On the face of it, this is a neat tuck-in, with built-in power that goes straight in. Invitation Homes (INVH) is paying $89 million, plus up to $7.5 million in royalties related to third-party capital building operations, to bring in a 70-person, Atlanta-based architect-to-hire developer and homebuilder.
“Today’s announcement reflects months of thoughtful planning to develop that vision, and our acquisition of ResiBuilt is an important step forward,” said Dallas Tanner, President and Chief Executive Officer of Home Invitations in a statement provided. “ResiBuilt’s state-of-the-art development technology enhances our operational capabilities and increases our ability to address one of the nation’s most pressing challenges: housing affordability. By increasing access to desirable markets and creating communities that families are proud to call home, we believe we can make a meaningful impact.”
ResiBuilt has delivered more than 4,200 homes since 2018 throughout Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas, and has 23 existing financing contracts and a pipeline of additional third-party financing opportunities.
“We’ve spent years building a world-class practice focused on bringing quality homes to the single-family rental market,” said ResiBuilt founder and President Jay Byce, in a press release. Byce and 70 associates have joined Invitation Homes and will continue to operate under the ResiBuilt brand. He added, “Being a part of Invitations to Invitations allows us to build on that foundation and expand our reach to better serve families looking for quality rental housing.”
No land is included, but the Invitations have secured options on nearly 1,500 properties, providing future “optional” purchases without adding land to the REIT’s balance sheet. The company expects the transaction to be accretive to 2026 AFFO per share.
That structure is as important as the title.
“ResiBuilt is an exceptionally high quality project – from top to bottom,” said Tony McGill, Senior Managing Director, Head of Investments at . Zelmanserved as legal and financial advisors, respectively, to RESICAP. “The leadership team, the discipline around the execution, and the way the platform is built all feel very purposeful and long-term. When you look at Invitation Homes next to that, the fit feels natural—not just strategically, but culturally. This is not a financial engineering exercise. It’s a combination where the operational mindset, the values, and the long-term vision of the vision align.”
Why is this pairing “a first”
This is not a real estate developer buying land, backlog and spec inventory. It is a REIT to buy the ability to generate supply – and, more importantly, to do so in a transparent way.
Invitation Homes successfully acquires contracts, systems and a team – internal development and delivery engine – without importing the usual stack of builder risks (land, rate, cyclical absorption exposure).
In the parlance of the deal, it’s light on goods.
That’s a different animal than the well-known “builder gets a builder” playbook, or the M&A expansion to rental we’ve seen where a smart buyer finds a building platform with a more familiar location. The Gehan Homes / Southern Impression Homes transaction, for example, was structured as a way to enter rental construction with a builder/developer platform with a controlled lot – classic builder DNA.
Invitation Homes makes an additional bet with surgery: control the production capacity and the cost curve, without getting a land letter.
Power-balance shift: from “household consumer” to “supply producer”
The immediate “what” of the SFR and BTR world is control — control of costs, schedules, product positioning, and market selection.
Invitation Homes CEO Dallas Tanner tied the move directly to a long-term build-to-rent strategy that includes mortgages and development — language that has been on display since late in the company’s investor communications in 2025, and is now running through a managed management arm.
If you’ve watched SFR operators over the past two years, a theme has emerged: buying homes in the MLS at a rate that “didn’t write a penny” the way it once did, especially when associated with channels directed at the builder and the purpose-built supplier.
HousingWire’s reporting on institutional purchases adds context here: institutional investors (portfolios of 1,000+ homes) are a small slice of the overall market – about 2% – and, in particular, they have recently become net sellers just as investors share the rose (driven largely by small investors).
Translation: the “Wall Street collects everything in the MLS” story line is politically powerful, but the growth path of the largest SFR REITs continues to be based on builder partnerships, forward commitments, and developments – not bidding buyers at foreclosures.
AMH is an obvious “comparator”—and it tells you about the competition
American Homes 4 Rent (AMH) has had internal development capabilities as part of its active ownership for many years, including a formal development program that has reached a reasonable exit.
Invitation Homes has now taken a clear step toward that model: building in-house development capacity as a long-term advantage rather than relying on outside builders and third-party developers. You can read this logically as INVH saying: we want more of the AMH playbook — without taking the risk of developing the style of the AMH sheet.
That means competition.
If you’re an AMH, you’ve experienced the benefits (and administrative requirements) of creating your own product. If you’re an Invitation Home, you’re now buying your way into a version of that profit — faster and with a lighter risk profile than the “build-it-yourself” floor ramp.
What the real estate developer says: the buyer may turn out to be a competitor (or at least a substitute).
Here’s where it gets uncomfortable with parts of the housing community.
Invitation Homes has become a key buyer of new homes through strategic relationships with builders. In 2021, The PulteGroup and Invitation Homes publicly announced a strategic partnership focusing on thousands of newly built homes over the years.
When a large, repeat buyer internalizes the power of construction, two things can be true at once:
It can still buy from you – especially when you have a lot, cycle time advantage, or community level equity. Or it can use “build it yourself” as an advantage for pricing, specs, delivery time, and who gets the next paycheck.
Even if Invitation Homes continues to buy significant volume from builders (and it may), the bargaining landscape is changing because the REIT now has another reliable source of supply: its own. For builders, the strategic question is not “does this end SFR sales?”
It’s this: does this squeeze margins and reduce the reliability of the volume piece that many manufacturers rely on for consistent absorption – especially in low-demand packages?
Current policy: prohibiting institutional purchases versus institutional provision building
Now, about the timing of this combo:
The Trump White House has floated the idea of barring large institutional investors from buying single-family homes — an idea that analysts have widely described as difficult to legislate and likely to have a short-term impact (depending largely on definitions and exemptions).
But here is the nuance that this discovery brings to light:
- If the purpose of the policy is to “stop agencies from competing with ‘owner-occupier’ buyers selling existing homes,” then purpose-built provision is the method of least political resistance.
- The message of the acquisition of Invitations Invitations depends directly on “delivering more housing solutions” through the use of innovation and financial light cooperation.
In other words, this agreement positions Invitation Homes to say: We are no longer the lowest bidder in the resale market; we create a growing supply. In the current situation, that’s not just a strategy – it’s political risk management.
And it is consistent with the broader data set highlighted by HousingWire: the activity of investors is concentrated in a few regions (including many markets in the Southeast where ResiBuilt operates), and institutional investors always have a small share even when the ownership of investors is raised.
Why are we likely to see more of these pairings?
If this game works – if INVH can reliably convert internal construction capabilities into low delivered costs, tight cycle times, and a continuous pipeline of homes in target markets – then it becomes a template:
- Single-family rental REITs seek cost control and reliability of supply
- Multifamily REITs are exploring “horizontal” product types nearby
- Private equity investors looking for the differentiated story of “we can create a product”, not just “we can buy assets”
And the most construction players at the intersection of mega-operators have built a vertical construction business as a service – to build a fee, a repeatable product, a work cadence – without the risk of land and the balance sheet that scares financial buyers.
That’s why ResiBuilt’s specifications – capacity to build 1,500 houses/year, contracts in hand, no land to transfer – are not trivial.
A new M&A blueprint for home construction.
