Disrupting the Rental Industry

[Steve K.]

The rental industry remains one of the least disrupted multi-billion $$$ industries in the US... Other than software to make marketing, property management, researching properties, finding owner contact info and accounting a bit easier, not much has really changed in rental property investing during the age of information. It seems we're due for some major disruption. Will there be an Uber equivalent to land lording that will make our jobs obsolete? Increased regulation? Zillow taking over? What are some ways that you see real estate investing developing over the next 5-10 years? What are your ideas for how to transform the industry? 

@Jim K.

@Jay Hinrichs

@Joe Splitrock

@Craig Curelop

@Mindy Jensen

[Jim K.]

I see five trends:

1. Cameras are going to become still cheaper and more capable. In 10 years I suspect there isn't going to be such a thing as a multifamily rental property bigger than a duplex that doesn't have a camera system. The decrease in local street crime where cameras are means that true D-class areas are going to get smaller and marginal C-class areas are going to get larger.

2. Autonomous driving vehicles are going to essentially kill the need for garages and greatly expand taxi service and rideshare offerings. This will further redraw the C/D map in urban areas. At the same time, autonomous driving vehicles will also make longer commutes more comfortable. A 1-2 hour commute isn't going to be such a hassle if you can sleep, do your email, and study effectively while driving.

3. I have been working from home for 11 years now in my W-2. Although the pandemic increased the number of jobs that can be done remotely, there really is a natural limit to how many office jobs can be turned into work-from-home opportunities. I don't see radical change coming on that front.

4. In our new age of the greatly increased power of the automated background check and ever-growing computerized databases, owning  and operating rental properties has become much safer than it used to be. This has led to a huge influx of people buying rental properties as investments, especially large business concerns doing it as a form of alternative investment. This will continue.

5. Landlords have never been more hated. By and large, the influx mentioned in (4) above is the main reason for this. The political backlash has begun and will continue to develop. More restrictions on evictions, collections, more county and municipal inspections, more moratoriums are on the way. In some places, these are very obviously going to backfire and either rent will be untouchable or landlords will simply sell and get out en masse, creating acute housing crises in the affected areas.  That's when the trend will quietly reverse, as politicians realize they can't continue to effectively use and abuse the poor for political gain without keeping landlording profitable and keeping the rent down by creating landlord-favorable policies.

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One major thing that could disrupt or take advantage of these trends is cheap modular multifamily construction to replace our ever-decaying residential construction housing stock. This could be achieved through onsite 3-D printing of components, drone labor to assemble the multifamily building, major NGO investment in these technologies. I don't see this happening in 10 years. Maybe 20-30.

I don't see much else, @Steve K.