With the credit crunch in the mortgage market pricing out many would-be homebuyers, the next best thing to owning a home may be renting one.

The rental market in North Texas currently is swollen with homes, in part because of the high rate of foreclosures.Through the first eight months of this year, the number of North Texas rental homes in the MLS listings soared 18 percent, compared with the same period last year, according to the MetroTexAssociation of Realtors.

And consumers are snapping up homes to rent.

New buyers can get wrapped up in choosing flooring, paints and other options for a new home.

But architects say there’s something they should be paying more attention to: the home’s sight lines.

Those sight lines will determine which rooms open up to each other and to views of the outdoors. And that affects how a family will interact in the space, says Michael Malone, a principal in the Dallas office of WKMC Architects.

Before breaking ground on a home, Mr. Malone shows clients a 3-D model to help them determine what they’ll be able to see from various rooms.

Government reports this week are expected to show that builders in the U.S. began work on the fewest homes in 12 years in August and that inflation cooled, suggesting the Federal Reserve may need to cut interest rates more than once before the year is out.

Housing starts likely fell to an annual rate of 1.35 million, from 1.38 million in July, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News ahead of the Commerce Department’s report Wednesday.

The construction report may also show permits, an indicator of future building, dropped to a 1.345 million annual pace in August, a 12-year low.