Rental home rude awakening for many on Central Coast

What gives is, number one where you live, the beautiful Central Coast where several factors play into this answer according to one property manager.

Gail Valdez with Bay Property Management tells me there is a trickle down affect from the San Francisco Bay Area.

“It has a lot to do with supply and demand, when the supply is not there and the demand goes up. Rents tend to increase a little bit,” says Valdez.

Add to this the vacancy rate according to Valdez is extremely low. “We actually have a 1% vacancy factor right now. Which is very low the lowest it’s been in years.”

“Scary low?” I asked. “Scary low,” says Valdez.

“Some of it is because agriculture is coming back into town. They bring a lot of people.” Says Valdez, “There are people relocating for their jobs as well.”

Rents in the Bay Area have spiked in the last 6 months and that’s a factor too.

“It’s more a trickle down affect down here. I would say our rents have only gone up 4 to 5 percent,” says Valdez. But that’s just in the last 6 to 8 months. So when I asked Valdez for example she said a $2000 a month rent 6 months ago will now be $2100. That’s about 5 percent increase.

Doesn’t seem like much, but lets say we add that increase up over the last three 6-8 month periods or roughly 3 years, if rents go up $100 dollars a year, that’s 300 dollars or more, depending on the Central Coast location. Add to this, if incomes are not going up that puts a renter further behind the eight ball.

Here’s another important factor, investors who bought homes low during the foreclosure crisis are now selling off those homes in this market. That has forced renters into other available rental homes, further lowering supply and increasing demand as well.

It’s a landlords market.

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