These days, it seems like the local Sun Valley real estate brokerage community is becoming more and more involved with marketing and dealing with rental properties for clients. In years past, we typically see a few agents posting emails in our local MLS intranet seeking rentals for their clients or friends. Most of the older posts were from agents trying to help a friend or prospective buyer find a place to rent during the holidays, for instance. Or maybe a kid was coming home from college for the summer and was looking for a crash pad for a few month. It was just a nice way to try to help a friend out if possible.
Many of the emails we see these days are still just that…a helpful and easy way we can use our network of agents and property owners to help connect owners and renters so they can have a good time in Sun Valley for a week or find a long term rental property. But for some, working on placing tenants into rental properties has become a bigger part of their business. In the past, it was never anything a realtor was paid for. We just made the connection and the owner and renter did the rest. Now days, many agents are actively working with clients seeking rentals and are getting paid for their efforts. It’s a reaction to market conditions and it makes sense.
A lot of the increased activity in the rental market is unfortuantely based on the economy the housing bubble and unemployment issues. In a lot of instances, however, renting is the new way to go whether it’s forced or chosen. Renting just makes sense for a lot of people right now for a lot of reasons. Economic uncertainity, freeing up capital, job loss potential and the need to be nimble and liquid in challenging times are but a few.
Normally, many people like to rent for a year or so when they are relocating to a new town before they buy. This has always been the case. Now days, a lot of those would be buyers are just renters with no immediate plans to buy in a year. I a working with several new families that just moved to town and they are all renting. The challenge is, like the for sale market, that the rental market is soft as well. Just like we have a lot of inventory for sale, we have a lot of inventory for lease. Rental rates are down and landlords are having trouble securing quality tenants with stable income. It cuts both ways and both sellers and landlords are feeling the pinch.
I am a member of the technology committee for the Sawtooth Board of Realtors (soon to be the Sun Valley Board of Realtors) and we have added a specific category to our email system that deals specifically with rentals. Additionally, we are drafting a rental input form that will be made part of our form library that we use to post listings for sale and now for lease. Point is, rental activity is increasing and it is becoming an increased segment of our business for many local Realtors.
Drop me a line to explore the options. I bet I can help.