After losing homes to foreclosure, former homeowners are scrambling to find a place to rent. This situation will only become worse as the projections for foreclosures are expected to continue to rise. Many areas of the country are in short supply of rentals. The same markets where you read that foreclosures are at an all time higher, the vacancy rates are at an all time low.

I recently had a vacancy on a property in Florida. My property manager put an ad on Craig’s List. We priced the property $25 under market rent. We had over 100 applicants for the property and were able to put a nice couple in the home. They could easily afford the payment and told my property manager they would sign a lease forever if I would allow it, that they never wanted to own property again.

This is a trend. If you price your property right for rental and have a long term lease (I like one year leases as they allow me to evaluate market conditions ever year), you may see more and more people fighting for your investment property.

If you can afford to, don’t give up on being a landlord or holding property for the long term. We can ride the wave and watch the prices rise with good people in our homes!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 5:00 am and is filed under Investing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.