Dive Brief:

• Big builders Lennar and Toll Brothers have detoured from their traditional focus on single-family homes to add rental properties to their product lines.

• Lennar opened its first community of single-family homes for rent in Nevada in March, and is building 20,000 rental apartments, an investment topping $5.5 billion. The builder has said if it cannot rent the 80 homes, it will put them up for sale.

• Luxury builder Toll Brothers is building apartments and student housing.

Dive Insight:

The entry into the rental market of traditional, for-sale builders has come at a time when apartments are in high demand and rents are skyrocketing. At the same time, the rate of homeownership has hit a 20-year low.

Still, the move is experimental. While Lennar CEO Stuart Miller told investors last week that “the trend ... has benefited our multifamily strategy rather dramatically," the builder’s apartment division lost $5.7 million in the most recent quarter, according to Bloomberg.