There are so many variables to rents that just looking at one or two will not give you the whole picture.
-People are loosing jobs, and as such are moving in with family or friends, moving home to parents bedroom, moving to where employment is higher (ie outa CA) or down sizing. How much do you really need that second bedroom to be an office if you have no job? Wouldnt a 1 bedroom do?
-Beyond this, there is more happening. You mention the fact that people are loosing houses and have to rent, and as such rents should go up. Cept that people have been loosing houses for a long time now, and those houses they lost last year are hitting the market now as rentals. Sure enough, if you go back and look, there likly was a rent surge in your area (there was in 92126) last spring. Now as investors pick up the slack of buying the bottom, rents will suffer as supply is reintroduced to the markets. This is especially true for the best renters. If most of the people applying to rent a property have lousy credit, no job, or lousy credit AND no job, and you have good credit and a good job, you are still in the drivers seat with rentals as GOOD (notice: not all LL’s fall here) landlords will value good tenants more than a small rental change.
-Notice that the higher ends are finally being effected too. However these owners have more resources, so many are trying to rent out rather than foreclose, further adding to supply.
-Plus, some LL’s will tell you that they have to increase rents yearly as their costs go up yearly. While true often, right now many many deals can be had at prices much lower than a year ago. Contractors and supplies cost alot less, so it is hard to justify yearly rental increases when your costs fell over the past year. (please note: not all costs have gone down, only some have. I am not interested in arguing every little point about this. Some are up, some are down.)
-It also depends on the area. I have said for a while that MM rents are set by students and Qcomm. I dont know much about Qcomm, but students are taking a beating right now economically. “Fees” are up, jobs are scarce and low paying, parents equity is tapped out drying up the fund transfers, loans are harder to get, etc. Plus when they graduate students no longer have careers just waiting for them, so they must conserve cash now, and that usually means doubling up, trading down, or moving to cheaper areas. Neither is good for rents locally.
Personally the places that I have seen hurting the most are those that offer the least for the money. The places that want top rent cause the complex has a “BBQ area” or a pool from 30 years ago that no one cleans. They are the places that charge median rents but have too little parking or are near a freeway (loud) or are “luxery” cause they have ‘egg shell white’ walls AND granite counter tops vs normal white walls and tile counter tops. Most people are not willing to shell out for those in this economy.
