The Sale market continues to bounce around along its lows. There isn't a whole lot of difference in 2011 from 2010 or 2004. One big exception was that March 2010 was a big month as homebuyer rushed to close out tax credit sales. A host of reports will come out this week and show basically that there isn't anything to get excited about just yet on the sales side. Maybe, just maybe, though the rental market is offering a light at the end of the tunnel for sellers and landlords alike.
Just about two months ago we raised the rents on all single-family detached homes by 5%. That number came from a forecast webinar I participated in by Zellman and Associates. They expect that trend to continue for the next three years. At the time, our rentals were moving pretty well, so we raised up rents and viola! We can't keep enough houses on the rental market.
Some more good news is that we are discussing raising the rents on our condos that weren't previously converted from apartments. The demand has been pretty good for these units as well. The apartments aren't doing half bad either. Our biggest complex is up to 96% occupancy and we are cutting back on move-in incentives temporarily.
We also have had some record-breaking activity over at Bosshardt Property Management, LLC. Our leasing agents are fully booked and the number of email, phone call and text inquires coming in and being converted to showing appointments is at an all-time high.
I am a pretty big believer that this is the start of the turning point for the sale side at least if you are an investor. Better yet, if you want to be wealthy some day I would strongly advise you to buy a starter home, or move up to a nicer home with a good FHA mortgage. I'll post again about this later, but an assignable (with qualifying) FHA 30 mortgage may be not only the best investment you can make, it also might just be a great hedge against impending inflation.
