Report: Single-Family Rental Demand Is Outstripping Supply

By Nick Timiraos For WSJ.com November 13, 2012, 8:00 AM

 

Demand for single-family rental housing is outstripping the available supply of homes, and some housing markets that have been hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis have seen rental demand jump by more than 25% in the past year, according to a report to be released Tuesday by real-estate firm CoreLogic CLGX -2.06%.

It shouldn’t be surprising that single family rental demand has picked up in recent years: There are many families who have lost their homes to foreclosure or that can’t qualify for mortgages given tighter underwriting standards.

But the magnitude of rental-demand gains is still eye-opening. Markets that include Port St. Lucie, Fla.; Riverside, Calif.; and Tucson, Ariz., have all seen rental demand jump by 25% over the past year, and 22 of 30 markets tracked by CoreLogic have seen year-over-year leasing gains.

The single-family rental market has attracted a glut of institutional investor capital over the past two years, as firms to seek to build scattered-site property management infrastructure for an asset class that has long been the domain of mom-and-pop owners and smaller investors.

Slightly more than half of all rental units in the U.S., or around 21 million units, are single-family homes. Around four in five of those unit owners are individual investors.

Investor demand for rentals shows little signs of weakening, according to the CoreLogic report. Leasing activity was up 7% from one year ago in August and up 12% from the beginning of this year, even though the inventory of homes for rent is down by 11% from one year ago.

As a result, it would take just 2.6 months to rent the available stock of for-lease homes in August, down from 3.2 months of supply last year and over 5 months in 2007. It took just six weeks for a listing to be rented, which was unchanged from one year ago but down from more than eight weeks in 2009.

Single-family rents, which tend to show less volatility in either direction than home prices, rose by 2% last year and have increased by 1% so far this year, after declining in 2009 and 2010. “While those increases are low, rent growth typically lags home price growth by about 12 months,” writes Sam Khater, senior economist at CoreLogic, in the report. He expects rent growth to increase “at a strong clip” late this year and throughout 2013, though not at the same rate as home prices.

The largest rent increases were found in North Port, Fla.; Cape Coral, Fla.; and Honolulu, where rents increased by more than 6%. But rents also rose in cities such as Houston and Raleigh, N.C., where the economy has fared better and the housing market wasn’t as hard hit by the bust. Large rental increases beyond the housing-bust markets “is indicative of the rising tide of demand for single-family rentals,” wrote Mr. Khater.

Original Post: http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2012/11/13/report-single-family-rental-demand-is-outstripping-supply/

American Voters Choose Obama To Lead Us - Down The Road To Ruin

Be careful what you wish for America, you might just get it.....

By Bill Frezza for Forbes.com

Despite a good look at the bankruptcy of entitlement democracy playing out across the euro zone, Americans have gone to the polls demanding to join the death spiral. Offered a clear choice, the promise of free stuff vanquished our abandoned heritage of freedom.

The ideals upon which this country were founded can now be buried alongside the discarded Constitution that used to protect them. Remember this moment so you can explain to your impoverished grandchildren that this is the day the sputtering American dream was finally laid to rest.

Six months ago, I confidently predicted that Americans would come to their senses and turn back the explosive growth of government unleashed by Barack Obama. Instead, the electorate doubled down, inviting him to “complete what he started.” And so he will, for there are still some people left who are not living on food stamps, welfare, disability, unemployment, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, government pensions, Pell grants, free school lunches, earned income tax credits, farm subsidies, or any of the 79 means-tested federal welfare programs that are sure to continue growing in the years ahead.

As a bonus, ObamaCare is scheduled to hit the economy just as the nation dives off the fiscal cliff. Like a hurricane brewing over warm Caribbean waters, a perfect storm of bad fiscal policy, bad tax policy, and bad social policy is being pumped up by the printing presses of the Federal Reserve. With Obama safely ensconced in the White House, Helicopter Ben can continue his QE-Infinity plan, monetizing our exploding national debt until the bottom falls out of our currency.

Like the proverbial dog that caught the bus, Obama now fully owns the economic crisis he worked so hard not to waste. After an opening flurry of progressive legislation, stalled thanks to the 2010 voter insurrection, Obama has since been ruling by decree. Returning to office with no need to worry about reelection and armed with the belief that he has the mandate of the people, nothing can stop him now.

It’s not hard to guess what lies ahead, and it’s certainly not an era of good feeling as The One trots out the vaunted “cooperation and compromise” skills he kept so well hidden his first term.
Watch as the business community hunkers down trying to salvage what it can. Watch the parade of WARN Act notices announcing layoffs held in abeyance at the President’s behest until after the election. Watch businesses start to fail, joining the disastrous parade of green energy “investments” that have characterized Obama’s first term. Watch as Argentinean-style capital flight and double digit inflation become the lead story of his second term.

Watch for down-corrections to the government-issued economic statistics designed to fool voters into believing that the economy was healing. Watch a torrent of pent-up regulations rain down on industry after industry already groaning under the weight of compliance costs. Watch the recession come back with a vengeance, assuming we ever get enough honest economic data out of the government to call one. And when the recovery Obama has been promising since the last election never materializes, turning the moribund state of the economy into the new normal, understand that you asked for it.

H.L. Mencken was right—voters do get what they deserve, good and hard. Which means it’s time for those of us who have been sounding the alarm to get out of the path of this runaway train and start looking out for our own families first.

It is perhaps too soon to start stocking up on bottled water and canned goods, as many wish they had in Greece. It may be too soon to buy real estate in a backup country, assuming you can identify one that will avoid the fallout of a failed America. It may not be too soon to start hoarding gold coins. But it is certainly time to disengage from the lost cause this great country once was and start putting together a personal Plan B.

Let the warring tribes we’ve been divided into struggle to redistribute the evaporating wealth of a nation in decline. Let radical egalitarians see what happens when they get the equality of outcome they demand. Let those on the dole try to collect on their precious “right” to free stuff when bureaucratic rationing replaces the market’s invisible hand once the cornucopia of goods and services start running dry.

Press pundits call business leaders selfish for trying to preserve a free market system that makes it possible to pay for the growing array of entitlements reducing our countrymen to a state of dependency. Angry mobs shake their fists at success claiming the rewards are unfair, foolishly believing you can have one without the other. Treasury officials recklessly borrow from foreign powers hoping our profligacy can go on forever. Politicians think they can extract enough money from the 1 percent to provide an unearned standard of living to the 99%—or at least to as many interest groups as it takes to cobble together an electoral majority looking to consume more and more as they produce less and less.

Do you want to see what Forward really means, what’s in store for our children, what the end game looks like? Then keep your eyes on Greece, the birthplace of democracy, as it slides into a war of all against all.

Good luck, America. We are going to need it.

Original Post: http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrezza/2012/11/06/american-voters-choose-obama-to-lead-us-down-the-road-to-ruin/