by Calculated Risk on 7/03/2012 10:15:00 AM

Press Release: Rent increases outpace home prices rises, reports Trulia

Trulia today released the latest findings from the Trulia Price Monitor and the Trulia Rent Monitor ... Based on the for-sale homes and rentals listed on Trulia, these monitors take into account changes in the mix of listed homes and reflect trends in prices and rents for similar homes in similar neighborhoods through June 30, 2012.

Asking prices on for-sale homes–which lead sales prices by approximately two or more months – increased 0.3 percent in June month over month (M-o-M), seasonally adjusted. With the exception of nearly flat prices in May, prices rose in four of the past five months. Asking prices in June rose nationally 0.8 percent quarter over quarter (Q-o-Q), seasonally adjusted. Year-over-year (Y-o-Y) asking prices rose by 0.3 percent; excluding foreclosures, asking prices rose Y-o-Y by 1.7 percent. Nationally, 44 out of the 100 largest metros had Y-o-Y price increases, and 84 out of the 100 largest metros had Q-o-Q price increases, seasonally adjusted.

However, seven of the 10 metros with the largest increase in asking prices also have a high share of homes in foreclosure, including Phoenix, the Florida metros, and Detroit and its suburbs. These coming foreclosures threaten to reduce or reverse recent price gains in those markets. In contrast, Denver, San Jose, Pittsburgh, Little Rock, Austin and Colorado Springs all had price gains of more than 4 percent with a moderate or low share of homes in foreclosure.

More from Jed Kolko, Trulia Chief Economist: Rising Home Prices Can’t Keep Up with Rent Increases

According to Trulia, rents are increasing even faster than house prices.

On rents from Bloomberg: Manhattan First-Time Apartment Buyers Grab Deals in Slow Market (ht Mike In Long Island)

“Rents are just so high right now that for a lot of people it doesn’t make sense” to continue leasing, said Sofia Song, vice president of research at StreetEasy. “A lot of people are saying, ‘You know what? For this amount of money I can probably buy something.’”

Of course Manhattan is its own world, but it does appear rents are increasing in many communities.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the change in asking house prices in June, adjusted for the mix and seasonal factors. Although these are just asking prices, this suggests prices have continued to increase through June, and that seasonally adjusted closing prices will continue to increase through July and August on the repeat sales indexes.