but where are the people who are going to make a run on these rentals going to come from?
Who is going to be able to sell their house and move into a rental if everybody thinks renting is better? They won’t be able to sell their house, the only people who will have the choice to rent or buy will be people who have not bought yet, but I think the majority of people who could have or wanted to buy, have bought.
Conversely, the only people left who haven’t bought at least one home didn’t qualify (because they were deceased), or didn’t want to (the people on this board). Of course there are others who for whatever reason didn’t qualify (newly released from prison, presently incarcerated, and people in vegetative states) and are renting but I think the majority of people who wanted to have bought and are locked into their houses for awhile, so I don’t think you’ll see a large migration out of houses into rentals.
My guess would be that more houses will move onto the market as rentals next summer. I’ve seen several places in my area that have been sitting empty for months and have a for sale sign on them and a list price at their previous purchase price. Eventually, these owners will have to give up and rent these out.
Of course, I think that rental prices will probably rise, but more because of overall economic growth and not so much because housing costs more now and people want to rent instead of buying.
I think we’ll see the price to rent ratio come down not because of rising rents but because of falling home prices.
