Don't expect any quarter from the rental sector.

As hundreds of thousands of homeowners enter some stage of foreclosure each month, it's not surprising rents are up in each of the 32 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) tracked by Novato, CA-based RealFacts.

From the Orlando-Kissimmee, FL, MSA, where rents were flat but considered up slightly from a year ago, to the 11.9 percent year-to-year increase in Silicon Valley, homeowners are trading in the centerpiece of the American Dream for an apartment, according to RealFacts' third quarter 2007 numbers.

The trend is squeezing the supply and that's pushing up rents.

RealFacts keeps tabs on more than 12,000 rental communities of 100 units or more in MSAs in 15 states, most of them west of the Mississippi River, but also in Florida and Illinois. The firm also keeps tabs on rental units by category, from studios, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments to three- and four-bedroom town homes.

Only average, rents in Los Angeles, at $1,630 a month, were the only location with higher rents than the hot San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara MSA (Silicon Valley) market, where rents averaged $1,622 in the third quarter.

The other high-rent districts were San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, at $1,551 a month; Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, at $1,548; San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, $1,363; Miami-Ft Lauderdale-Miami Beach, $1,224; Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, $1,159; Vallejo-Fairfield, $1,141 and Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, where the average rent in the third quarter was $1,057.

Revealing current market pressures, quarter-to-quarter rent increases were up 4.1 percent in Salt Lake City and 3.3 percent for both the San Francisco and San Jose MSAs, according to RealFacts.

The increases translate to monthly average rent increases of $30, $49, and $52 respectively.

At the current pace, Salt Lake City will see a 16.4 percent annual rent growth, while San Francisco and San Jose will both post a 13.2 rental growth rate.

Home price growth in owner-occupied housing has stopped or slid in many markets, but home prices, still packed with nearly a decade of appreciation, remain unaffordable for many, especially those who can't find financing in the current hard money market.

Revealing swarming tenant demand, occupancy rates were at or above 95 percent for one third of the MSAs in the data base, with all MSAs reporting occupancy rates of 90.5 or more.

Salt Lake City posted the strongest occupancy of any MSA at 97.2 percent, followed by San Jose at 96.4 percent, Fresno at 96.2 percent, San Francisco at 96 percent, both the Boise City-Nampa MSA and the San Diego MSA at 95.7 percent and Tulsa, OK at 95.6 percent.

The worst news in the rental market was year-over-year occupancy rate declines in the third quarter involving 24 MSAs.

Leading the losses were Orlando and Phoenix, both down more than 4 percent, with three other MSAs recording losses of over 3 percent.

It wasn't enough, however, to keep rents from rising.

Published: October 18, 2007

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.