Investors Are Unlocking Biggest Profits Here

atlanta georgia skylineThe county offering the highest returns from single-family rental properties so far in 2017: Clayton, Ga., in the Atlanta metro area. That’s according to the first-quarter 2017 Single Family Rental Market report, released by ATTOM Data Solutions. Researchers analyzed single-family returns in 375 U.S. counties, each with populations of at least 100,000, and more than 6,000 U.S. ZIP codes with a population of 2,500 or more.

Other counties offering some of the highest annual gross rental yields in the nation on single-family properties are Baltimore City, Md.; Bibb County, Ga., in the Macon metro area; Monroe County, Pa., in the East Stroudsburg metro area; and Saginaw County, Mich., the report showed.

Among counties with populations of at least 1 million, these areas were offering the highest gross rental yields: Wayne County, Mich., in the Detroit metro area; Cuyahoga County, Ohio, in the Cleveland metro area; Allegheny County, Pa., in the Pittsburgh metro area; Philadelphia County, Pa.; and Franklin County, Ohio, in the Columbus metro area.

The average annual gross rental yield among the 375 counties tracked was 9 percent in 2017. To compute it, ATTOM Data Solutions divided the annualized gross rent income by the median purchase price of single-family homes.

“While good returns on single-family rentals are hard to come by in high-priced coastal markets and in some other housing hot spots such as Denver and parts of Dallas, Austin, and Nashville, solid returns on single-family rentals will continue to be available in many parts of the Southeast, Rust Belt, and Midwest for investors purchasing in 2017,” says Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at ATTOM Data Solutions. “And single-family rentals should continue to yield strong returns in many parts of the country going forward given the market undercurrents of low rent-ready housing inventory and low homeownership rates.”

Blomquist notes that average fair-market rents rose in 2017 in 86 percent of the markets his team analyzed, even while average wage growth outpaced rent growth in 67 percent of markets—“a recipe for sustainable growth in the rental market.”