Has anyone else noticed rents starting to diverge from property values?

[John Chapman]

I'm in Dallas and I've started to notice (or at least it appears to me) that housing prices are starting to increase (or have increased) faster than rents. For the third, time this week I've looked at houses that are now comping at $130K, but 3 months ago were down at $110-115k. The comp numbers are solid despite my refusal to believe it.

The thing, though, is that I know rents are not rising as fast. I've checked CL and MLS and these houses that have now ARVs of $130K are still only renting for about $1100 (maybe a little more). Usually, if it's an ARV of $130K, you could get about $1300 in rent. (My usual rule of thumb, until now, has been you can 1% of ARV in rents.)

Anyone else noticed this? Doesn't seem to portend well for future purchases. I can't tell if this is a legitimate trend, though, since my sample size is so small, and it could just be anecdotal.