Not so much for single family detached houses, but built-to-rent apartment buildings are becoming a fairly popular investment class. Real estate has generally used different capital structures for tax reasons (REITs) and to access the artificially subsidized by the federal government individual mortgage market, but there are now funds which buy distressed or underpriced real estate and convert it en masse into rentals, and companies building various kinds of multifamily dwellings-to-let.