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.

[Jill F.]

We are making significant improvements in our value add portfolio and getting significant rent increases at each turn over however, we are not raising rents for existing tenants for the duration of the pandemic.