Historically rents rise as property markets fall. Sure we all know people who live for years in a place that rent doesn’t increase, and then when landlord’s see the chance they bail out on the property, leaving the tennants high and dry. Well,I know more that the rents increases more often than not..(So that’s the next to go.)Do you think that landlords don’t recognize that people are renting because they are waiting for the market to tank substancially. It’s pushing up the market already. The Fed noted and is poised to raise interest rates (if rents rise too far affecting inflation), but how far will they let it go? With the astronomical home mortgages it will take years for rents to catch up, or will it?
Check this out posted today:
Sunday, October 22, 2006
O.C. rental rates push up 6.1% in third quarter
Orange County’s largest landlords received average rent hikes of 6.1 percent in the year ended in the third quarter, RealFacts reported last week. The typical rent at a large complex is now $1,494 – up $88 in a year.
The only good news for renters is that is this past quarter’s rise is the slowest annual rate of rent increases on a percentage point basis since the second quarter of 2005.
Why can landlords continue to ask for – and get – these kinds of rate hikes? Few vacant apartments, a byproduct of a healthy job market, and home shoppers remaining skittish.
RealFacts reports that only 3.3 percent of local apartments at large complexes were empty last quarter. That’s down from 4.6 percent in the second quarter and 4 percent a year ago. Industry experts think any vacancy rate under 5 percent is, theoretically, a “sold out” condition.
