On April 16, 2007, I wrote this in my journal: Rents are expected to go up in 2007. This would be the third year in a row. The rise is projected to be 5% this year for a 14% total rise since 2004, a report by Marcus & Millichap said. That compares to a 4% increase in pay. Over the same period, adjusted for inflation. Marcus & Millichap says this situation will make housing more difficult to find, especially in the coastal cities. They predict the trend will continue for another three years. From 2000 to 2004 landlords couldn’t raise rents, USA Today said, because tenants were leaving to buy houses or condos. To feed that buying frenzy, about 300,000 apartments were converted to condos for sale in the past 3 years. Now, even with 92,000 new rental units this year, the stock is still too little to meet the rising demand. New York City is one of the worst. There rents have increased 7% in the last year. The national median rent will be $943 a month, which is 60% of the median mortgage payment of $1,566. Renters will get a break in Miami, Las Vegas and San Diego, where investors bought up thousands of condos hoping to flip them. Since the market faltered, many of those investors will need to drop rents to help them pay expenses or will be forced to sell them at steep discounts.
That was then.
This is now…
Since 2010, housing supply has increased considerably. Thousands of new units have been built and so the market for rentals has slowed. My partners and I have been selling our single-family holdings in favor of small-to-medium apartment buildings (8-50 units). And though we have seen some evidence of prices going down, it’s mostly on properties that were priced too high to begin with. As a result, we’ve had a tough time finding buildings in our general price range (up to 8 times gross rents).
