Mosaic

“If you can represent a construction project with more granular data, you can manage things better." Salman Ahmad spoke with Owen Drury and Martin Piekarz about how technology enables our teams to deliver: ?? 30% cost savings compared with commercial GCs ?? 25% schedule savings compared with homebuilders ??? BTR communities of any size ?? Custom architecture that doesn't sacrifice the design of a community ?? Consistent work to residential trades Listen to the episode of Bricks & Bytes on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, link in comments!

What does it actually cost to develop a build-to-rent community for hundreds of people? In this edition of Mosaic Insights, we went behind the build to analyze financing a BTR community from land acquisition to stabilization.

“We can’t solve cost increases with rent increases.” What’s the collective feeling of BTR in 2025? Cautious optimism. Here are our takeaways from last week’s IMN BTR East conference. 1. There seems to be a “wait and see” approach to the market, with fewer deals getting immediately approved. The reasons why vary depending on who you ask, but operators across the spectrum are hungry for new work. 2. Construction and land costs haven’t moved enough to make projects pencil. However, developers can get creative to find available dollars in places such as product designs, amenities, and working with their GC to ramp up delivery speeds. 3. Standardized amenity programming doesn’t exist. What is considered an amenity is largely dictated by your tenant profile, size of the community, and the location of the community. The negative side might be in “keeping up with the Jones’s” to match your competition. The positive side is in being able to play a little bit more with products and layouts to find a balance that lowers your cost and gets your project started.

We transform sites from dirt to doors, embracing local trades to deliver housing to thousands. Come build places people love with us.

“We’re seeing a tale of two pipelines.” What’s the state of Phoenix’s BTR market? Alex Pollack shares his 4 takeaways from last week's Bisnow conference: 1. One pipeline is developments planned in 2022 that missed the financing window. These deals have been repeatedly seen by equity/debt markets and contractors/consultants over the past few years, but cost inputs and rates haven’t moved enough to allow them to underwrite in this environment. If developers want them off the ground sooner than the end of the year, they will likely need to invest additional dollars to realign their plans with the current market - where the competitive landscape has evolved since 2022. The other pipeline is newly proposed projects where the sponsors have looked at today's market with today’s cost inputs (mainly land price) and are finding ways to get their deals to pencil. 2. We’re playing the waiting game as everyone is aware the supply/demand equation heavily favors BTR developers delivering units into late 2026 and beyond where there is a significant impending supply gap. 3. There is cautious optimism that fundamentals are returning for well-located and well-planned communities. 4. Tony Chen also emphasized that market competition has increased with new projects coming online that were started 18-24 months ago. This requires a sharp focus on designing communities and floorplans that will outcompete existing projects once they come to market.

Don’t miss our panels next week at IMN BTR East! ?? 3/17: Evaluating Strategies: Buying Stabilized, C/O, Using Fee Builders or Self-Performing Construction ?? 3/18: Land Strategies: Sourcing, Financing & Acquiring Lots Salman and Alex will be covering:? - BTR financing: How to navigate the current environment - Land acquisition: Where to find the best deals - Construction: Best practices for horizontal, vertical, and amenity production If you want a deeper dive into Mosaic’s approach to BTR construction, stop by our booth, catch us in the halls, or send us an email to set up a meeting - partnerships@mosaic.us. See you in Nashville!

The US housing crisis persists in an environment defined by scarcity. Fewer projects are getting approved. Less capital is accessible. Limited numbers of trades are available. Critical changes could be made to allow more projects to pencil. 1. Increasing certainty and clarity on the approvals process from county and city governments. 2. Reducing regulatory burdens in the planning and inspection processes for greater efficiencies in land transactions, financing structures, and construction schedules. 3. Lowering interest rates and more creative capital structures. 4. Continued educational investment in local trades programs. In this “industry of industries,” every operator plays a part to bring more housing online.

Women are a force in construction. We’ve had the incredible opportunity to work with some of the best, from the back offices of Mosaic to trade partners in the field, who make significant contributions to not just the communities we build but the industry at large. They deserve to be recognized. Here’s to all women in construction who shape the world around us on this National Women in Construction Week.

“We have actually seen an increase in the availability of subcontractors in Phoenix, resulting from a slowdown in new project starts in both the for-sale and multifamily segments.” Build-to-rent has been a boon for trades to keep their crews booked. And their increased availability is taking some heat off of developers. “This benefits projects starting today as there’s a broader range of qualified subcontractors to work with in addition to emerging gaps in their pipelines of work, and can result in better costs or schedules.” There’s a lot of positive indicators for BTR development in Phoenix. Next week, Alex Pollack will be covering them all, including:? ?? Where BTR demand is rising in the Valley ??? How developments have changed over the last 5 years ???????? Why BTR homes are critical to filling the area’s housing gap. Catch his panel, Unlocking Potential: The Future of SFR + BTR, at the Bisnow Phoenix BTR, SFR, and MPC conference. If you can’t make it, read our Phoenix BTR analysis cover story with InBusinessPHX. Link in comments.

197 homes and 193,375 square feet of constructed homes later.. We passed our final drywall inspection at Avilla Palomino! We continue to turn over finished units and welcome the first wave of tenants to the community, while the final phases of construction continue on the remaining homes. With multiple stages of construction happening at once, our field crew and trade partners are a well oiled machine working through the final deliveries.