HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

Are HP'ers elitists?

As predicted, as housing crashes, rents fall too. Could it get any better for bubble sitters?

Remember when trolls said this would never happen?

One more thing the trolls were wrong about. But damn, this one was just so obvious - it's called supply and demand.

Remember though that the government inflation data's #1 component is rent, so get ready for deflation (or the statistical deflating of inflation).

Home Sellers' Pain Is Renters' Gain - There's one bright side to the housing crisis: some lower rents.

But in the regions hit hardest by the subprime crisis, finding a rental apartment is easier and, in some cases, cheaper than it was before the crunch. Some homeowners forced out by foreclosure are finding rental deals that are at "discounts of 50% to 70% off what they were paying on their mortgages," says Brenda F. Gerdes, who owns Management Specialists Inc. in Port St. Lucie, Fla.

Behind the trend are tens of thousands of unsold condominium units that are being dumped on markets such as South Florida, Las Vegas and Phoenix.

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."