The rental market is softening so fast in some pockets of the country that landlords have no choice but to offer concessions
The rental market is softening so fast in some pockets of the country that landlords have no choice but to offer concessions
"With vacancies on the rise, some landlords are doling out one-time discounts to attract renters while maintaining high asking rents on paper"
What the fuck is it called a concession... rather than "fair market price"?
Fair market price is when they can gouge you. Concessions is when they actually have to compete.
It’s Fortune magazine, that’s why.
At first I read this headline as a good thing, but after reading the article it's bullshit. They're just giving temporary discounts to new tenants while still gouging the existing ones. And it's all in an effort to maintain their ridiculous prices 🙄
Exactly. Nothing long term or valuable is happening.
Yeah in the start they literally say median rent is 2 dollars lower than the record high which was set last year so with a paywall in front of it its basically misinformation by insuring most people only see the headline.
Also they are doing it to keep their assets looking good on paper cause what you charge in rent values the asset which is dumb as fuck.
If it's a temporary discount it still reads on paper as if the rent hasn't decreased but if it does go down and suddenly people who have you loans based on that passive income and asset wealth catch on they will realize their loans are fucked.
We are on such a dangerous precipice because everyone has to pretend that this is totally sustainable or else we absolutely have a market crash a lot like 2008 and wow who would have seen that coming right?
Why can't they just offer the concession of lowering their rent in the first place, instead of relying on gimmicks like a first-year discount?
A lot of apartments in my area do first year discounts. The reason for that is a lot of cities have rules about how much you can raise rent in a year. Discounts are a loophole since they can raise it based off the non-discounted value. Also moving sucks and a new place has a chance of being terrible (and you're stuck for a year). So people are more willing to pay an increase once they're already in an apartment they tolerate.
What I find interesting is when landlords talk to each other, it’s “passive income!” but when they talk to the public, it’s so much work, and they’re providing housing to people out of altruism.
It's a bubble. If they don't up real estate investing then the market goes down and they stop making money. But yes, the hypocrisy.
Yeah, when prices rise precipitously for no real reason, people always say "it's permanent!", and it never is. Steady increases over time, sure. But there was no reason for say, houses near me to go from 250k to 425k in 3 years all of a sudden.
I can't remember the last time I read an article about the economy that wasn't solely for the upper middle class. ...whatever that is now.
Never settle till a one bedroom is 500-700$ usd.
In Scotland, I rented a one bed detached house with a big garden and a sea view for £300pcm haha.
Oh aye, everything is better in Scotland!
That's what I was paying in a small college town about twenty years ago. I doubt if we'll ever see that again. I just checked and that building isn't even there anymore. Looks like they tore it down and put in some luxury student housing (!) for around $1600/month. Wtf.
When the pandemic hit, the sheer panic of the wealthy people in my neighborhood who had multiple rental properties was super satisfying. Even more satisfying than seeing their panic was seeing their reactions to being asked why they don't just sell their properties.
:)
Keep churning people. It's annoying and difficult but everytime we move apartments, it's time and money the LL needs to invest. The frothier the market, the more it favors renters.
That's how concessions become the new price. Don't make it easy on them.
What a terrible news article. I can't even read the whole thing without getting paywaled
There's a town near us, we're waiting for the housing bubble to collapse so we can move there, in the past 10 years, they've built luxury apartment building after luxury apartment building, hoping that the university students in the town will rent them. They're about to get a harsh awakening.
we're waiting for the housing bubble to collapse so we can move there
You may be waiting a very long time. People aren't selling their homes with mortgages at 2-3 percent from 2020-21. Golden handcuffs until rates come down at some point.
That's where I am. We bought our place in 2016. Since then i became a parent and my house is no longer ideal, but I have a 2.7% rate when we refinanced during covid.
Zillow says our place is supposedly worth 70% more, but houses are still selling for double.
I can't move. It's also fucked up that I'm incredibly fucking fortunate to even have a place. If we hadn't bought when we did we'd be fucked
Good fuck em
Paywalled. Where and why would the rental market be softening?
Last move I did, one of the places I looked at tried to get me into a bidding war. The sheer fucking gall was unbelievable.
Good. That's how it was and how it's supposed to be.