Now that my taxes are done I can catch up on some posting I’ve been meaning to do.
Keith Jurow recently published a report on Minyanville.com about the Las Vegas housing market (a report on Chicago comes out in about 1 month). Although Chicago is not Las Vegas there were some interesting data points (for the 3rd quarter 2010) in this report about the state of the Chicago area rental market courtesy of RealFacts.com:
- Rents were up 6.1% in the last year
- Occupany rates were up 1.9% to 95.7%
There will be an updated report available in another month or so, at which time we can get a sense of whether or not this trend is persisting. I’m guessing it will.
The implication for renters/buyers is clear. In a period of low interest rates, lower home prices, and rapidly rising rents homebuying starts to look really attractive. You can evaluate your own situation and play with the assumptions using my favorite tool: the New York Times Rent vs. Buy Calculator.