In my previous blogs, I talked about that San Jose rental market is getting tight and rents are expected to increase. Apparently, the folks at Harvard agree with me too. Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies just published their annual housing report The State of the Housing 2011. The report gives a comprehensive look of the many facets of the housing market and concludes that the population growth is exceeding new housing build and change in demographics will also drive changes in the types of housing required. It captures many data that have published before except this: I have seen rental projections in several rental markets. This is the first time that the entire US rental market is shown in a single map, excerpted below.

You can clearly see that San Jose and the Santa Clara county (but not including San Francisco) is the ONLY metropolitan area west of Mississippi where rent will increase by

> 5%. So renters take heed now. If you are still renting, you should re-consider the buy vs rent. Or brace yourself for rent increase. And investors, study the map. Go where the rent is increasing, not decreasing.