Lafayette to Kick Off South Florida BTR Project
The first units will come online next year.
Lafayette Real Estate will break ground on Lorraine Crossings, a 66-unit single-family rental project in Lakewood Ranch, Fla. Construction is expected to kick off this month.
Marquis Homes, the company’s in-house homebuilder, will oversee the process. The first units are slated for completion during next year’s second quarter.
In January, Windham Development sold the 10-acre site to Lafayette for $3.4 million, according to Business Observer Florida. Manatee County approved the project in April last year, with 25 percent of the units—or 17 units—renting at or below 120 percent of the area median income.
Carrying the address 3518 Lorraine Road, the development site is roughly 20 miles northeast of downtown Sarasota, Fla. The local government proposed a $66 million infrastructure improvement project as the area witnessed a rapid population growth.
READ ALSO: US Single-Family Rent Index—March 2025
Lafayette had $1.3 billion in assets under management as of April, comprising more than 5,000 rental units, including more than 1,000 under development. The firm’s pipeline represented more than $700 million in allocated capital.
SFR deliveries to be cut in half in Southwest Florida Coast
As of April, the Southwest Florida Coast’s BTR pipeline encompassed more than 1,200 BTR homes underway across nine projects, according to Yardi Matrix data. Roughly another 2,600 units were in the planning and permitting stages.
The data provider forecasts 550 BTR units will come online this year in the market, a sharp decline compared to the more than 1,100 rental homes completed last year. The SFR outlook for deliveries is not expected to change much going into 2026 and beyond, as the potential for further cost increases due to tariffs and labor availability represents another hurdle for developers.
