I just read Marc Stephan’s “Unlimited Real Estate Porfit,” and loved it. Here in Tucson, however, there seems to be a disconnect between the single family housing and rental markets. Prices are up by 100% in the last few years for homes, (indicating the expansionary phase by his theory), and yet apartment rents have gone nowhere, and there are still empty apartments everywhere. It’s an interesting situation. Has anyone seen this in other places?
Steve,
It’s actually relatively commonplace. It is, IMO, a sign of an overheating market. I see it (or actually hear of it) mostly in places like SoCal, Seattle, NYC, Boston, Washington DC, Florida, Chicago, etc., etc. where the sales prices escalate exponentially faster than the lagging rental markets.
In some areas, I cannot see how investors can get into the markets…
Keith
The population is still increasing steadily here, so I think that when interest rates kill off the housing market a bit, more people will be renting, and that should push rents up (and therefore the value of rental properties). We’ll see…