Dive Brief:

• AHV Communities, which has 17 communities totaling 3,100 units at an approximate stabilized value of over $1.5 billion under management, is gearing up for more growth by making four new executive hires.
• The company named Luke Massar as chief financial officer, Michael Seiden as general counsel and chief legal officer, Anthony Del Grippo as executive vice president of investments and Nader Adly as senior vice president of national supply chain management. 
• AHV has communities under development in Washington, California, Texas, Colorado, Tennessee and Alabama, but wants to expand across the country. “It’s imperative that at this stage of exponential growth, we assemble a best-in-class leadership team that can successfully oversee our increasing community pipeline and rapid expansion into additional markets,” said Mark Wolf, founder and CEO of AHV in a press release shared with Multifamily Dive.

Dive Insight:

In the past couple of years, as many Americans seek more living space, interest in single-family rentals has grown. Seventy-eight percent of renters replied to a survey on rentcafe.com that they were interested in living in a community of single-family homes. 

But not all of those interested in professionally managed single-family rentals are coming from apartments.

“There are almost 15 million people that rent single-family homes, including condos,” said John Burns, CEO of Irvine, California-based John Burns Real Estate Consulting. “A huge percentage of them would love to rent a new home in a community managed by a professional company.”

Developers from across the spectrum, including single-family and multifamily firms, are ramping up to meet this perceived demand. After 6,740 new build-to-rent homes came to market in 2021, nearly 14,000 should open their doors beginning this year, according to Rentcafe.

AHV, a privately held and vertically integrated developer, was an early entrant in the build-to-rent sector in 2013. With a desire to build from coast to coast, Wolf saw the need to bring experience to his leadership team.

The four hires all bring lengthy careers in real estate to their new positions:

• Prior to AHV, Massar was co-founder and principal at Chicago-based tech products company Westhill Innovation and chief financial officer at Walton Street Capital for 15 years. There he drove organizational expansion into four additional funds, raising more than $5 billion in capital and $10 billion in real estate assets. He also served as a senior manager at KPMG.
• Seiden, who has experience in representing developers, operators and capital partners in real estate transactions, was a partner at law firm Pircher, Nichols & Meeks LLP before moving to Greenberg Traurig LLP as a shareholder in 2020. 
• Del Grippo, who has more than two decades of equity and homebuilding experience, most recently served as director of the real estate group and developer capital group for Rialto Capital Management. He also was senior vice president for land acquisition at Beazer Homes. 
• Adly takes on supply chain management at a time when getting materials to jobsites is harder than ever. He previously managed national supply chain and commodities at KB Home, where he set the company’s buying strategy on a national level and guided its execution and compliance.