Turnkey rentals are built on a simple promise: The provider delivers a rent-ready home, places a tenant, lines up property management, and gives the buyer a projection of what the property will rent for. That home can be a newly built property or an older house that the provider has rehabbed or renovated before the sale. Because many turnkey investors never see the home in person, the rent projection carries a lot of weight in the decision to buy.
Rent to Retirement (RTR) is a turnkey single-family rental provider. According to the company, about 80% of its inventory is new construction, and the remaining 20% is older homes that it rehabs or renovates.
RTR decided to put its own track record to the test. The company opened its sales records to an independent third party, which reviewed 3,090 homes RTR sold between 2017 and 2026. The reviewers matched 2,763 of those homes to public resale records and compared projected rent with investor-reported rent on 740 of them.
The results speak to three questions every turnkey investor should ask:
- Do buyers hold on to their properties?Â
- Do the owners who sell get more than they paid?Â
- Does the projected rent actually show up?
Most Buyers Hold for the Long Term
The homes RTR sold in 2017 and 2018 have the longest ownership record in the review, since their buyers have had seven to eight years to decide whether to sell.
Of the 489 homes RTR sold in those two years, 369 are still owned by the original buyer, which works out to 75.5%. Among 2018 buyers, 79.2% still own their homes, and among 2017 buyers, 71.1% still do.
RTR credits much of that staying power to its scale. The company works with builders, lenders, and property managers in each of its markets, and those relationships help owners solve repair, vacancy, and financing problems early. RTR also encourages its investors to work through setbacks instead of selling, because its entire model is built around long-term ownership.
Owners Who Held Sold Above Cost
The review found 148 recorded resales among RTR homes. The median home sold for 1.41 times its original purchase price, and three out of four sold for more than the buyer paid.
The longer owners held, the better their results were. Owners who held for four years or more sold above their purchase price 96% of the time, and their median sale price ranged from 1.57 to 1.86 times what they paid. Owners who sold within two years broke even at the median.
For owners who held for at least two years, sale prices rose by a median of 8.7% per year. That figure reflects the sale price alone, so an owner’s total return also depends on the rent they collected, how they financed the home, and what they spent to operate it.
Sale prices varied for the investors who chose to sell. RTR points out that the investors who still own their newly built homes started from a strong position. Through its builder relationships, RTR secures institutional-level buyer incentives that the company says exceed anything publicly available on the MLS. Those incentives give RTR investors better terms on the purchase than a typical buyer would get on the open market.
Most RTR investors never sell at all. According to RTR, its typical investor holds for seven to nine years, and many use that window to refinance and pull out cash or to trade up through a 1031 exchange. Both strategies let owners stay invested and keep building equity.
Most Rents Landed Right on Projection
Rent is the number a turnkey buyer relies on most. Among the 740 homes with both a projected rent and an investor-reported rent, the median home rented for exactly what RTR projected.
In total, 598 homes, or 80.8%, collected at least 95% of their projected rent, and 476 homes, or 64.3%, landed within 5% of the projection in either direction. One Alabama home bought for $332,400, for example, was projected to rent for $2,350 a month and rented for exactly that amount.
No forecast is perfect, and the homes that came in below 95% of their projection fell short by a median of 15%. On a $2,000 monthly rent, that gap would be about $300, so investors should keep cash reserves on hand for any rental they own.
Ohio Projections Were the Most Accurate
Projection accuracy varied by market. Ohio, which makes up RTR’s largest rent sample with 355 homes, had 94.9% of homes rent at or above 95% of their projection. Tennessee and Alabama followed closely at 89.5% and 89.1%.
Florida rents ran softer than the other states in the review. Just under half of Florida homes, 46%, reached 95% of their projection, and the median Florida home rented for 93% of the projected amount. Investors looking at Florida properties should build a little more cushion into their numbers.
Lower-Priced Homes Hit Projection Most Often
The purchase price showed a similar pattern. Homes that sold for under $150,000 reached at least 95% of their projected rent 97.5% of the time, while homes priced above $350,000 did so 51.2% of the time.
Lower-priced homes also delivered stronger gross yields, which measure annual rent as a share of the purchase price. The median gross yield was 10.8% for homes under $150,000 and 7.7% for homes above $250,000.
What to Check Before You Buy
A pro forma is a projection made on closing day, so investors should know what a good one includes. A useful pro forma lists every expense, including a vacancy allowance and money set aside for large repairs. It also spells out the loan terms, which lets a buyer test how the deal holds up if rent comes in lower or a repair costs more than expected.
It also helps to ask any turnkey provider for its track record by market and by price point, since RTR’s data shows how much those two factors can matter. From there, buyers should complete the standard due diligence: an inspection, a review of comparable rents from a local property manager, a careful read of the management agreement, and their own quotes for insurance and taxes.
What This Means for Investors
Rent To Retirement’s records point to three clear takeaways:
- Most early buyers still own their homes years later.
- Owners who held for four years or more sold above cost almost every time.
- The median home rented for exactly its projected amount.
Taken together, the data rewards investors who commit to a long-term plan. That means holding for years, keeping cash reserves for vacancies and repairs, and growing a portfolio steadily over time. Going from one door to two spreads the risk of holding just one property and improves the odds of building a strong portfolio.
