A Miami-area real estate investment firm has purchased a recently constructed community of 101 built-to-rent houses near St. Cloud from Texas-based D.R. Horton – the fourth BTR community in two years that the firm has acquired from the country’s largest homebuilder.
Bayshore Investment Partners (BIP), based in Coral Gables, paid $29.4 million for the community, Ibis Park at Harmony West – slightly more than $290,000 per home for the three-, four-, and five-bedroom houses. To help BIP acquire the property, Berkadia loaned the firm $19.11 million in a five-year, fixed-rate loan with a full-term interest-only structure.
The transaction continues Berkadia’s longstanding work with BIP as the firm expands its BTR portfolio. Over the last two years, BIP has also acquired three other BTR communities from D.R. Horton: Cedar Ridge at Forest Lake in Davenport; Laurel Lakes Townhomes in Seffner near Tampa; and earlier this year, Fox Glen, a 100-home community in Cocoa. Berkadia financed all four deals for a total of 339 purpose-built rental homes.
Renter demand for professionally managed build-to-rent communities continues to outpace new supply across many Florida markets, said Berkadia Managing Director Brad Williamson.
Ibis Park residents enjoy a robust amenity package in Harmony West that includes a clubhouse, fitness center, resort-style swimming pool, Harmony West that includes a clubhouse, fitness center, resort-style swimming pool, volleyball court, playground, and outdoor gathering spaces. (Courtesy of Berkadia)
“Build-to-rent has become a well-established asset class that many institutional investors now view similarly to traditional multifamily, with strong investor appetite and attractive financing available for quality projects,” Williamson told GrowthSpotter. “Demand is strong, particularly in high-growth markets like Orlando, where the cost of homeownership remains a significant barrier for many households.”
BIP was founded in 2010 to acquire and operate multifamily and commercial properties. Today it acquires apartments, rental houses and industrial flex assets. It currently owns and operates 16 multifamily communities consisting of more than 2,000 units, as well as 200,000 square feet of commercial property.
BIP was pleased when Congress recently passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which became law on July 11. The landmark bipartisan bill was intended to target the U.S. housing affordability crisis by cutting construction red tape, boosting housing supply and updating federal programs.
Among other things, the new law places strict federal limits on large institutional investors buying up single-family homes – it limits them to a “cap” of 350 homes. But at the same time, the law protects the BTR sector by exempting newly constructed single-family rental communities from those restrictions.
“We view the final Act as a net positive for our BTR strategy,” BIP Founder and Principal Jose Tello told GrowthSpotter. “The enacted law removed the provision that would have forced institutional owners to divest purpose-built rentals within seven years, while its remaining cap targets large-scale acquisition of existing single-family homes — not the ground-up, purpose-built communities within BIP’s existing footprint, including Ibis Park.”
Tello added that, by preserving incentives to build new rental communities rather than compete for existing housing stock, the new law supports added supply that gives renters access to single-family homes at a rental price point, without bidding against first-time buyers for existing homes.
BIP’s newest acquisition, Ibis Park, is located at 7110 Sandhill Crane Way within the Harmony West master-planned community, near U.S. 192 just east of the St. Cloud city limits. Completed in 2024, its 101 houses feature three-, four-, and five-bedroom floor plans and open-concept layouts with 10-foot ceilings, granite countertops, vinyl plank flooring, stainless steel appliances and small fenced backyards. Amenities include a clubhouse, fitness center, resort-style swimming pool, volleyball court, playground and outdoor gathering spaces. The homes rent for between $2,100 and $2,900 per month.
Before D.R. Horton sold Ibis Park at Harmony West to BIP, and before it sold BTR communities in Davenport, Tampa and Cocoa to BIP over the last two years, it sold newly constructed BTR communities to a number of other investors.
In April 2025, D.R. Horton sold 100 detached BTR homes in the Lake Griffin Reserve subdivision in Leesburg to Chicago-based home-rental operator Kairos Living for $27.2 million, or approximately $270,000 per house. Berkadia brokered that sale as well.
In June 2023, D.R. Horton sold a trio of recently-completed BTR subdivisions with 363 detached homes and townhouses in Osceola and Polk counties to Pretium Partners, a major player in the single-family rental industry, for a combined $131.2 million.
So was there competition or bidding over the recent purchase of Ibis Park at Harmony West?
“Initially, yes,” BIP Principal and Managing Partner Efren Ales told GrowthSpotter. “It was widely marketed, but pricing fell short of expectations and based on our strong relationship and repeat certainty of execution with the seller, facilitated a seamless acquisition despite some significant volatility in the capital markets environment prior to closing.”
He added: “Ibis Park reflects exactly the kind of asset we have built our BTR platform around – institutional-quality, newly constructed communities in high-growth Sunbelt markets with strong demographic fundamentals.”
