Starting Anew. Watching Rental Rates.

February 12th, 2008 by mark moran| Posted in About Us | No Comments »

After a prolonged silence, the MyNewPlace blog is back in business. 

Over a million people a month use our site for their apartment and home rental search – ranging from young families to seniors, urban hipsters to suburban professionals, and from college students to visiting professors. We consider it an honor to be allowed to be part of the process of finding a place to live for so many people as they navigate through major transitions in their lives.

We are hoping that our blog quickly morphs from a monologue to a multitudinous dialogue, that it provides valuable, occasionally entertaining, information related to searching for, and living in rental properties, and that a community of folks with shared interests emerges.

We have a whole host of stuff that we plan to write about – ranging from rental trends and fashions, to economic research, to site how-to’s, to personal rent and roommate stories. When possible, we’ll add local perspectives. We’re looking to you and your feedback to help keep us on track and on points of interest.

One question I’m often asked is: is the mortgage melt-down going to lead to lower rents or higher rents? We receive lots of real estate and rental industry research, and actually read a fair amount of it. That said, it’s hard for this non-economist to see a clear relation between the ongoing real estate downturn and movement in rental rates nationally. Marcus Millichap recently published their annual national apartment report that states the “asking rents” will rise an average of 4% in 2008. However, actual rents are likely to rise at a lower rate and certain markets where speculative home and condo buying was particularly high (think: many parts of Florida,  areas in Southern California and Arizona, etc.) are clearly much softer than the national average. Why? Because in those soft markets a flood of condos have come back on the market as rental units and are effectively increasing rental housing supply faster than the increases in demand.

What’s that all mean for the normal renter? Do pay attention to the broader real estate trends in your area, but for the most part don’t expect big bargains. The location of the property, condition of the building, and amenities will continue to drive pricing and relative bargains. When using sites like MyNewPlace, focus on what amentities you really care about and the max rent that you’re comfortable with and use those filters to refine your search. Happy hunting!