RealtyTrac, the nation’s leading source for comprehensive housing data, today released its Q2 2014 Residential Property Rental Report, which ranks the best markets for buying residential rental properties along with the best markets for renting to baby boomers and the best markets for renting to millennials.
For the report RealtyTrac analyzed median sales prices for residential property and average fair market rents for three bedroom properties in 370 U.S. counties with a combined population of 186 million people — 60 percent of the total U.S. population. Rental returns were calculated using annual gross rental yields: the average fair market rent of three-bedroom homes in the county, annualized, and divided by the median sales price of residential properties in the county.
The 370-county analysis found that investors buying U.S. residential rental property in the second quarter of 2014 are getting an average annual return of 9.97 percent, down from an average annual return of 10.60 percent a year ago.