Rents crashing along with the US housing market

Here's the view from California. If you read anything from any idiot who says that rents will go up as the housing market crashes, just laugh.

Rents are going to tank over the next few years. Way too many houses. Desperate homedebtors who can't sell. A US recession. The illegals go home. Millions of job losses. And bubble sitters and bitter renters rejoice.

Unable or unwilling to sell their homes at declining prices, homeowners in Riverside and San Bernardino counties are converting them to rentals, glutting the market and causing rents to fall for the first time in years, according to Inland property managers.

Among the new landlords are investors who bought houses at peak prices and have watched their equity evaporate or homeowners who have relocated, leaving behind a house they can't sell.

There are so many Inland homes for sale, that even if no more come on the market, it will take more than two years to sell the houses available, according to the California Association of Realtors

"People who can't sell their homes have two choices," said John Denver, owner of Perris-based John Denver Realty. "They can stop payments and let them go back to the bank or rent them out."

"It is a good time to be a renter and a lousy time to become a landlord," said Denver. He said in the past six months, the average time it takes to rent out a house in Perris has lengthened from two or three weeks to two months. Rents have fallen about 5 percent. He said the average monthly rent has slipped to $1,100 in Perris.

Denver said today a $300,000 house purchased with a 7 percent down payment would likely require a monthly mortgage payment of $2,500. The same house, he said, can be rented for $1,300 a month, "and the owner has to do the repairs."