I almost feel like I am piling on here…but for heavens sake…you don't even need an argument against this…just GOOGLE.
I personally am not counting on a rent decrease, and I am also not claiming that we are certain to have a 50% nominal decline in housing prices. But to say that rents never decline is the most easily refuted statement, it was almost not worth the effort.
I make no predictions about what will happen with rents. But, in general slow/negative growth seems to be linked to flat/declining rents. Real Estate Bubble deflation seems to be linked to flat/declining rents. Add it up.
A brief historical tour, via 10 minutes of GOOGLE.
New York – 1993Apartment Rentals Tightening By NICK RAVO
Published: February 7, 1993
NYT
“Indeed, the market continues to be very soft, and rents last year dropped in many parts of the city, particularly in areas where gentrification never fully took hold and for such apartments as studios, small one-bedrooms, fourth-floor walk-ups and units in buildings without doormen.
But the rent declines were not, for the most part, as steep as they were in previous years. Overall, rents in New York have dropped about 15 percent since the real estate recession began in 1988, about half as much as the sale prices of co-ops and condominiums. …Rents, according to the National Cooperative Bank, showed the greatest decrease — 14.8 percent — in Lower Manhattan. On the Upper West Side the drop was 4.2 percent and on the Upper East Side, 2.7 percent.”
“…rental rates for apartments have fallen by nearly 30% for most of the Bay Area. Here the East Bay has been hit as hard as its two neighbors, hardly a surprise given the commuting patterns of the region.”
“Over the last four quarters the greatest year-over-year rent declines were in San Jose, 5.4%; Tulsa, 2.8%; Oakland, 2.4%; Austin 2.4%; Portland, 2.0%; and San Francisco, 1.6%. For both the quarter and year-over-year, three of five of the biggest rent declines were in northern California markets„San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco” April 23, 2004
Boston, etc. – 2005“Rental markets have soured as well. Rents in most cities have been either flat or down in 2005. In Boston, a net loss of about 180,000 jobs in the past few years drove rents down about 10 percent in 2005, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Development (HUD).”http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/07/real_estate/buying_selling/small_landlord_guide/index.htm
