patrick.net

And the shift has been sudden: Last year, rents rose about 4 percent. Just two years ago, rents were soaring as much as 9 percent annually.

“One, two, three years ago, we would literally have people move out and we’d be there to do a quick cleaning, and change the locks, and have someone literally move in a couple hours later. We didn’t lose a day of rent,” said Chris Benis, who rents out a dozen houses on the Eastside. Some tenants would even rent houses sight unseen.

But in the last couple months, two of his houses became vacant and drew just one tenant application each, and it took about a month to rent out each house. “We didn’t have people banging down the door to rent” them, Benis said.