Memphis TN October 2020 Market Update / Thoughts

[Sean Tagge]

Hello BP world and those interested in seeing how COVID has affected rent prices.

I would like to discuss an article here and some things I have been seeing. 

#1 this article

https://www.apartmentlist.com/...

Now this article is for multifamily but I believe SFR has seen the same trend. It shows the top markets that got hit the hardest with rental decreases since COVID. San Francisco CA, New York NY, Seattle WA, Boston MA, San Jose CA, Washington DC, Oakland CA, Arlington VA, Minneapolis MN, and Fremont CA.

So costal and large cities got hit the hardest with rental decrease. See below data.

But then it also shows the markets that actually had rent increases since COVID see below: 

Myself being in Memphis TN. Memphis was ranked the #8 city that fared the best through COVID actually showed a rent increase from COVID. From what I am seeing with selling 250+ SFR Trunkey houses a year. Our houses are renting quicker than ever and thus we are able to push rents up. I think it is basic supply and demand there are not a lot of houses on the market for rent (or for sale either SFR sales are down 5% YoY). Also our jobs are mainly logistics jobs like having FedEx, Nike, and lots of Amazon distribution centers located here. COVID causes an increase in online sales and thus you need more packages shipped so we kept most of our jobs through COVID and actually these employers hired more people through the pandemic. Additionally we are in an affordable market where 2 bed rents are still below $1,000/mo.We are seeing great rent collections as well. In October we had a collections rate on par or better with our previous 5 years of collections data (we manage 2700 doors here in Memphis TN).

Would love to hear what peoples thought are here? And what type of a play they are making?