High demand market with lagging rental rates

[Joe Spillner]

Hey BP, looking for some opinions! I live in a rapidly growing real estate market (Utah County) and I'm growing my buy & hold portfolio here. However, the rental rates haven't quite kept up with the appreciation growth here. I don't want to speculate but all the signs point to rental rates rising in the future. So my question is, if you were in my shoes, would you 1.) buy in a growing market like this now with smaller cash flow (and ROI rates) with the assumption that rates will rise, 2.) wait for rental rates to increase before buying with the potential of purchase price continuing to increase as well, or 3.) move on to outside markets for buy & hold deals.

I know there are often deals to be made in any market (just have to find them). I haven't started marketing for off-market properties yet so everything I'm basing my synopsis off of is MLS properties. Ideally I'd like to stick to local properties if possible so I can manage them myself but I'm not opposed to moving to outside markets if the deal is right.