Will rents go up in your area in 2021?

[Eric Bilderback]

I had a hard time raising rents this year. I did on some of the units that were quite a bit under market but I was not aggressive at all about rents that were already close to market. That was because of me I could have raised on all of them but I felt like 2020 sucked enough for everyone and I could afford to not push it on tenets that were already paying fairly close to market. In my area there are some different forces.

1. There is a shortage of places to rent in my area.

2. The price housing is increasing by 10% or more.

3. I rent to working folks and those people are getting killed here. I think they are going to be weary about getting into a more expensive lease.

That being said I believe overall rents will increase around 5%. Rents in my area have been increasing 5-10% annually for the last 5 years. I would not be surprised if they start going up over 10% in the next few years. I’m just looking at the amount of renters that want to rent homes compared to the amount of safe, pleasant places for rent.