Some folks are realizing that buying a house isn’t in the cards for them right now. Higher interest rates and ballooning home prices have made it unattainable, and that means they’ll be joining an already hot rental market.
Murat Arik is the director of MTSU’s Business and Economic Research Center. He says that when interest rates go up, so does demand for rental homes and apartments.
“Landlords who have multiple units in the market will have their day,” Arik says. “It’s because, you have so much demand for the rental units, and it’s going to also push the rental prices up.”
That prediction comes as rents have already reached record highs, and as Nashville faces an affordable housing crisis.
Arik says the change will likely be a bit of a shock to workers who move to Nashville from out of town. And for local renters who have lower incomes, it could be devastating.
“That’s the sad part. And of course, they are going to be affected dramatically. They’re going to be pushed out because the wages are not increasing at the level that we’ve seen those rental increases.”
He says lower-cost areas, like Robertson and Cheatham counties, may attract more people in the coming years as Nashville’s cost of living continues to increase.
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