What Does a Tight Rental Market Mean?

The following is an excerpt from the Cromford Report’s comments from March 30th on the state of rentals in the Valley.

• The situation with single family rentals continues to get even more extreme. Today there are just 1,763 active listings on ARMLS, down another 15% since the beginning of the month and down 25% from this time last year. This is 24 days of supply.
• The average lease rate is up to $2,106 per month (up 41% from $1,710 last year). The average days on market is down to 33 (it was 40 last year).
• There are 988 condo rentals active, down from 1,347 at the same time last year, which is a drop of 27%. This is 54 days of supply.
• The average lease rate is up to $1,655 per month (up 13% from $1,461 last year). The average days on market is down to 39 (it was 45 last year).
• Affordable homes to rent or buy are both becoming much harder to find. However there is still plenty of choice in the upper price ranges for both lease and purchase.

Now, the MLS is very powerful as a source of data for sales, but not so much for rentals. I’ve heard told that only about 50% of all rentals are represented on the MLS. Those tend to be the higher priced ones; not the ones that list on Craigslist.com.

Here’s a little more on the topic from an AZCentral.com article.

Still, this an alarming pattern. It means that there are a shrinking number of rental properties for families and individuals. This is also why cities are encouraging the building of new rental projects. See this post from last week, at least as pertains to downtown Phoenix.

Every problem presents an opportunity, however. If you are thinking of getting in to the investment market for rentals, now is the time to do it.

Please give me a call at 602-456-9388 if you’d like to build a strategy.