The July 2023 RESNET® HERS® Index Builder of the Month is AMH (formerly American Homes 4 Rent). AMH is a Maryland real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on acquiring, developing, renovating, leasing, and managing homes as rental properties. The company’s goal is to simplify the experience of leasing a home and deliver peace of mind to households across the country. AMH currently builds homes in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Washington. The average HERS® score of AMH’s 2,183 newly built homes in 2022 was 61.9. For this month’s RESNET® HERS® Index Builder feature, we asked Robert Broad, AMH SVP of Development, to share some insight on building HERS® homes for their customers. When asked why AMH chooses to have its homes HERS® Rated, Robert replies, “As a leading national builder of single-family rental homes, we recognize the importance of implementing environmental sustainability into the design and construction of new homes. Our residents living in HERS®-rated homes can benefit from a home designed to be more energy-efficient, which often results in lower utility costs as compared to a home that was not built with these metrics in mind. At AMH, securing the HERS® rating is an extra step we take in both stewarding the environment and investing in a better resident experience, and it allows us to substantiate that effort year after year with an externally validated score.” He continues, “Durable, sustainable construction also reduces the amount and frequency of renovation and redevelopment activity that will be required over time, which is important to us because we build our homes to lease and own for the long run. By submitting our homes to HERS® rating, we can quantify our sustainable development efforts and develop homes built for long-term performance and endurance”. Late last year, Bloomberg reported on AMH’s commitment to sustainability in “Wall Street Landlords Want to Rent You a Greener Suburban House”. Bloomberg concludes that the build-to-rent movement, “given its sheer size, could, in theory, move the needle on home energy efficiency and carbon emissions”. RESNET Executive Director Steve Baden recently appointed an ESG Advisory Group composed of a select group of rating companies and builder representatives to better track these emerging opportunities and to develop recommendations on how RESNET® should position itself to take advantage of them. The group is chaired by Matthew Cooper of RESNET Rating Provider PEG LLC. Read AMH’s full profile here.https://www.hersindex.com/articles/amh/
