Renting in feudal America: The new American Dream. The incredible momentum to renting continues even after many years of economic recovery.
ByI’ve lovingly called the new movement of people leasing homes as Rental Armageddon. A truly first world problem between buying an inflated crap shack or having to rent a property. God forbid you have to lease a place. People quickly lose perspective and that is largely one of the reasons we oscillate between booms and busts in real estate. But the data is very clear and that is, we are in a deep renting trend. We’ve added 10 million renter households in the last decade while being net neutral on adding homeowner households. That is a big deal. The housing market is also facing some massive demographic headwinds. Younger buyers are cash strapped and home builders realize this (this is why home building is lagging the mania because builders realize the demand is for rentals, even higher cost places). Also, you have Taco Tuesday baby boomers entering the twilight of their lives and they certainly won’t be upgrading their properties. A recent study by the Urban Institute sheds some light on this renting trend. There are some serious demographic and economic headwinds favoring the renting trend. One key finding is that for the next 15 years, rental household formation is going to outpace homeownership formation. Let us see where things stand today…
