Rent And Home Sales Increase, Experts Say It's Another Impact From Pandemic
SACRAMENTO (CBS 13) — As jobs are being lost, federal unemployment payments have expired, and now rent and home prices are on the rise.
As many struggle to pay on time, data shows that it's getting more expensive to find a place to live in some areas.
Rodney Luman owns Key Realty in Elk Grove and said homes are going off the market, almost as soon as they are listed.
"There were 87 homes put on the house on the last 24 hours, there were 86 homes taken off the market," said Luman.
Luman said most of the people he has worked with are moving from apartments to homes in the suburbs.
"They are figuring out no one is going back to school, I need more room to teach from home. I've had more inquiries for four bedrooms than in the past," he said.
The trend is being felt throughout the area. Homes available to buy are down 36.7 percent in 2020 compared to 2019, according to Sacramento Associations of Realtors. Median sales prices of homes have increased by 6.4 percent from $390,000 to $415,000 from June of 2019 to 2020.
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"It's availability that is the number one thing. There are more people looking than there are homes available," said Luman.
Renters are seeing the lower increases than home buyers from previous years, according to online real estate company Zillow, with an average of a $63 increase. According to Zillow, the typical rent in the Sacramento area is $1,846 in 2020 compared to $1,783 last year.
Zillow economist Jeff Tucker said that rents in the Sacramento area suburbs are increasing at 3.8 percent compared to 3.5 percent in February. This compared to urban areas with a 3.5 percent increase instead of a 6.2 percent in February.
"Rent has slowed down significantly more in the urban core of Sacramento. It could reflect a lot more people working from home and working remotely with less reason to be right downtown with a super short commute if your commute is just going to your bedroom every day," Tucker explained.
As the California statewide eviction moratorium is set to expire at the end of September, Tucker said any increase could hurt.
"There is a lot of pain on the rental side of the market even though we are seeing some rent increase...when we see rental evictions starting to expire, we could see a lot of renters not able to pay their bills," he said.
