With high occupancy rates and increasing rents, it's a good time to be a landlord.
Looks like developers are working hard to keep up with demand as new apartment high- and mid-rises are going up across the region.
StreetLights Residential, a boutique development company, is building its first high-rise dubbed The Taylor, set to open in 2014. The uptown apartment building, which has rents in the $1,000-and-up range, is just one of the many rental properties planned, in construction, or opening soon.
And according to a study from Axiometrics, average rents are on the rise, too. For Dallas, occupancy is tight at a little more than 94 percent, and average rents are at $879, which is a 12.7 percent increase over 2009. To get a taste of the upscale rental market, check out the Oak Lawn area: rents have increased 19 percent since 2009, with average rents at more than $1,500.
So, are we becoming a nation of renters? And, is that a bad thing?
As Candy mentioned, restrictive lending practices and tight-fisted banks despite historically low interest rates. So, more mortgage restrictions means fewer homeowners means more renters, right?
This story from MarketWatch says increased rental occupancy and prices can really be traced to the slow recovery from the recession and high unemployment:
The unemployment rate remains stubbornly high at 8.2%, and incomes have stagnated. Fewer Americans can afford to buy a home or qualify for a mortgage, especially given tighter lending standards. As a result, home ownership declined again. It fell to 65.4% from 66% in the fourth quarter, putting it at the lowest level since 1996.
Well, what do you think? Is it a renter’s market? And is that a bad thing in our economy?
