Rental Housing Market Trends

Increasing demand for rental housing is driven by the needs and preferences of four demographic groups: Baby Boomers, Echo Boomers, former homeowners and recent immigrants.

With roughly 5 to 6 million new renter households expected to form over the next ten years, BPC’s Housing Commission is considering how a new housing finance system can best support development of a range of housing options that serve this diverse and changing set of needs and preferences.

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Methodology

Authors of the BPC Demographic Challenges and Opportunities for U.S. Housing Markets paper developed three scenarios (high, middle and low) of possible future housing market growth. Rental household projections data come from the “middle” scenario which is based on a moderate recovery. The full data set can be found in Appendix B of the paper. Characterizations of groups contributing to rental demand are informed by a Chicago Tribune article, a 2011 Federal Reserve Board of Governors report and the BPC Demographics paper. Rental market unit-size data is taken from the American Housing Survey 2011, Table C-01-RO and analysis is informed by a March 2012 Fannie Mae data note. Multifamily starts and completions data comes from historical US Census Bureau tables. Statistics about the loss of rental housing stock are taken from a 2011 Harvard Joint Center report.