I first met Brittney White in Dallas at the IMN Build-to-Rent conference.
What started as a quick handshake turned into a deep conversation about how Build-to-Rent isn’t just a variation of multifamily, it’s its own animal entirely. When I invited her to join Getting to Hell Yes! Live, I knew this would be more than a talk about operations. It was about learning how conviction, creativity, and a willingness to break patterns can reshape an entire asset class.
“A huge misconception in the industry is that you can just plug and play a multifamily model into BTR,” Brittney said.
We’re on our way now!
A funny mixed bag of frustration and pride at the same time. Frustration at watching owners waste money trying to force old systems onto new models, and pride in knowing she and her team had built something better. From her background in luxury lease-ups to leading institutional BTR operations, she’d seen every side of the table.
Companies like to cling to familiar playbooks because they’re safe. However safety doesn’t scale or maybe even fit. This spring, a prospect told me: “BTR is like Multifamily, except the margins are really, really thin.” Efficiency does especially when you build for the actual problem, not the imagined one.
“We’re seeing owners come to us after trying the legacy multifamily approach,” she explained.
“They say, ‘We can’t make money at this,’ and we tell them, ‘That’s because you’re doing it wrong.’”
Lol. Brittney walked me through how her team re-engineered operations: proprietary software, centralized leasing, maintenance on wheels, and data-driven marketing that ditches cookie-cutter packages.
Many companies hide behind brand names instead of solving real issues. No one gets fired for hiring the “big multifamily operator,” but that’s not the same as getting results. Her perspective reminds us that leadership sometimes means being the first one to say, “this model doesn’t fit anymore.”
“Our owners worry we’ll lose the personal touch,” Brittney said, “but centralization actually gives residents better service.”
Most people hear “centralization” and imagine robots replacing relationships. Brittney described something different: a system that gives people their time back, residents and managers both. Work orders scheduled on the resident’s own time, techs dispatched faster, maintenance tracked in real time.
This is what technology should feel like: invisible, human, empowering. It’s not about replacing people; it’s about removing friction so the humans can do what they’re best at.
“BTR isn’t multifamily, and it’s not single-family,” she told me.
“It’s its own hybrid and that’s where most people get lost.”
We talked about the messy middle of this market, not quite urban towers, not quite scattered sites. A remix, as I like to call it. It takes lessons from both worlds: the precision of multifamily and the flexibility of single-family. But it also brings new complexities. Things like warranty management, homeowner-grade fixtures, and residents who expect the feel of ownership without the burden of it.
As she unpacked the nuance, I realized how easy it is to underestimate this space. BTR isn’t just an operational challenge, it’s an emotional one. You’re managing someone’s version of “home,” not just a unit count.
“I’d tell my younger self to trust herself more,” Brittney said as we closed the conversation.
Every innovation she described like the hybrid staffing, the tech enablement, the marketing creativity, all came from that same instinct to trust her gut when the data and tradition didn’t line up.
I’ve ignored my instincts before because the “safe” path seemed smarter, but nothing new ever comes from safety.
What I took from Brittney and what I’m asking myself after this conversation:
- Where am I still applying yesterday’s logic to today’s problems?
- How often do I mistake legacy systems for proven systems?
- Am I trusting my experience enough to build something new from it?
- How can I design solutions that feel personal even when they’re powered by tech?
- And maybe the biggest one: what would happen if I trusted myself just a little bit more?
Transformation doesn’t start with a plan, it starts with permission. Permission to rewrite the rules, test the edges, and believe that maybe, just maybe, we’re right to do it differently.
