Many of our clients have been asking about the rental forecast for 2013, and what we can expect for single family home rentals in the San Diego area. Here is a summary of what we are seeing in San Diego when it comes to rental homes and how they are performing.

First, rental demand is up. There are a lot of people looking for rental homes in the San Diego, California area. In addition, rental rates are also up. People are paying more to rent single family homes than they were in previous years. To add to the good news, I will also tell you that vacancy is down. Luckily, there are not a lot of empty rental homes sitting on the market with no one to occupy them.

The tenant population has grown and evolved in San Diego. We have noticed that more homeowners are short selling their homes or going through the foreclosure process. This means that we might continue to see many applicants for our rental properties coming from the homeowner sector. This is a huge bonus for the rental property owner. It gives you a larger market to pull potential tenants from. My experience has been that a homeowner tends to invest more in the care of the property they are living in, even when it’s a rental. They know how to take care of home and keep everything functioning and looking nice. This is a good thing and a major benefit for the owner of an investment property looking for a great tenant.

At Walters Home Management, we have seen rental applications increase by 14 percent over the last year. This is great news for our clients. We are looking forward to the rest of 2013, and we expect it will be a strong rental market year. This makes it a great time to be a landlord in San Diego, California.

If you have specific questions about how the rental market is performing, or you would like to develop a rental strategy for the rest of the year, please contact us at Walters Home Management. We would be happy to talk to you and help you work through your plans for investment properties.