The single-family rental market continues to be lucrative for investors; consumers still want to rent homes, and home prices are increasing. The cities offering the highest investor profits have shifted over the past year, according to data from RentRange.
Previously, many of the cities with the best single-family rental rate returns were in Sun Belt states, but now Rust Belt cities in Pennsylvania and Ohio are making gains as properties in certain cities start to appreciate.
But the metro areas with the largest year-over-year rent increases in the third quarter still feature the coasts and sunny locales. Coming in at the No. 1 spot was Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Washington (16 percent), followed by Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, Florida (13.4 percent); Lake Havasu City-Kingman, Arizona (13.4 percent); San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, California (11.9 percent); and Charleston-North Charleston, South Carolina, and Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, North Carolina (both at 11.7 percent).
Since the beginning of the recession, rental households in the United States have risen by 22 percent, for an increase of 8.4 million rental households, according to data from First American Financial Corporation.