Rental Demand Heating Up

Home prices had the lowest annual gain since August 2015 in November 2018, while annual rental price growth surpassed its appreciation rate from November 2017.

CoreLogic's data show that home prices grew 5.1 percent year-over-year in November, while rents gained 2.9 percent annually. In November 2017, rents grew 2.8 percent. CNBC reports that rental demand is being pushed up by demand for single-family rental homes; lower-end rental homes had a 3.8 percent annual gain in November. On the luxury end, rents appreciated 2.6 percent annually versus 2.3 percent in November 2017.

Of course all real estate is local, and hot markets like Las Vegas, Phoenix and Orlando, Florida, are seeing the highest rent gains for single-family homes. These markets were hardest hit during the housing crash more than 10 years ago, as thousands of homes were purchased by flippers, who were using subprime mortgages and later defaulted on their loans. These cities had the highest foreclosure rates in the nation, and many of those foreclosures were purchased by large institutional investors and turned into rental properties.

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