Looking for a place to rent? Here's where it's the most challenging in PA to find a place

 Patty Cox wants to rent a house, but she’s not having any luck.

She needs something pet friendly for her two dogs and a place that’s safer than the city neighborhood where she lives with her two teenage daughters.

“They had a shootout the other night where bullets were flying through people’s doors and windows,” she said. “Essentially, I’d love to be out in the country somewhere, where I don’t have so many neighbors, where it isn’t so crowded.”

She has looked on Zillow, Trulia and Craig’s List, and she’s posted on Facebook pages. She recently asked on a social media page for renters and landlords if anyone has had luck finding rentals, and all but one of them said no.

Rental properties are in high demand. In fact, the competition is so stiff that it’s driving up rent prices; nationally, rents have increased nearly 10% in the first six months of 2021. In some places, the market is so tight that people are offering above the rental price in order to get the one slot available. 

In Pennsylvania, it’s the major cities and their surrounding suburbs and towns that will have the most battles over rental properties, according to Brian Carberry, senior managing editor of Apartment Guide and Rent.com.

“The more urban you get in terms of demographics, there’s more people, more demand and less supply,” Carberry said. “In Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas are the hottest, and certain neighborhoods in those areas will be more in demand, and certain towns outside those areas will also be hot.”

The post-recession slowdown in building construction created a dearth of housing across the country – for owners and renters, but that’s only part of what’s fueling this rental frenzy. The low inventory in homes for sale is forcing more people to sign a lease than a mortgage. Added to that is the eviction moratorium, which lasted through the pandemic until just a few days ago, squeezing the life out of some landlords.

“The government has failed landlords and tenants,” said Greg Wertman, president of HAPCO Philadelphia, an association of residential investment and rental property owners and managers.

The failure, to him, is how the eviction moratorium has worked. His association is made up of primarily low- to moderate-income housing owners, and most of them are small mom-and-pop operations with one or two buildings that they manage. He's lost 600 members since the pandemic began; property flippers are buying most of those properties and turning them into residential properties.

Landlords have eaten the cost of non-paying renters through the moratorium, and while the government says they can recoup some of that money, the payback requires renters – some who have moved on – to sign off on that assistance.

“The media and others say: ‘Hey there’s all this money out there that landlords can get and make themselves whole again.’ You’re not getting it all back. It’s never gonna happen,” Wertman said.

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The short list

Tammy Strickland helps to manage about 250 rental properties in York and Adams counties for multiple landlords, and she has only three rentals available in the next few months. For each lease she has, five to 10 people have applied for the space.

“This is probably the lowest I’ve seen our list in the 11 years I’ve been here,” said Strickland, the rental manager and realtor for Ginny L. Reichart Realty in Hanover.

“People aren’t moving as they normally do, due to COVID, and some landlords are selling their properties because properties are selling. They can get their property for a higher price than they would have two years ago. It’s a seller’s market," she said.

Carberry has seen that trend, but he cautions landlords to hold onto property, if they can, because those properties will provide a steady income and build equity.

The demand and supply issue

“Demand is just outstripping supply,” said Zillow economist Alexandra Lee.

The moratorium hit the pause button on the lower-cost rental market, but when there is an influx of supply, prices will likely decrease, she said.

Zillow is predicting 260,000 evictions will occur across the country in the next few months, she said, but she expects some landlords and tenants to work through informal agreements. Evictions are costly, time-consuming and stressful for both sides. How those evictions will affect the housing market is not clear, she said.

The pandemic also created a shift in housing: Telecommuting created the option that homeowners could move farther from their employer. They looked for more space inside and outside their home, and they wanted better rental prices.

“Affordability is part of the equation, but implicit in that is more space, more bang for your buck,” said Lee. The pandemic pushed up the timeline for people considering a move, and in some cases, it changed their preferences altogether, she said.

Even before the pandemic, a shift had been happening away from the expensive coastal hot spots, like New York, San Francisco and San Jose.

“They saw a pronounced slowdown during the pandemic,” Lee said. When workers had the option to work from home, some moved out of the expensive coastal cities and relocated inland. The sunbelt is seeing the greatest growth in places like Las Vegas, Tampa and Phoenix.

A disabled vet’s fight

Patty Cox grew up in the mountains of Sullivan County, then she moved to Lancaster and joined the Army for 10 years. She now rents a home in York city, but it hasn’t been easy. She and her two girls unwittingly moved to an area that was unsafe.

“We’ve been trying to move away from the trouble, then we get comfortable. We’re in a house two, two and a half years, then there’s a shootout, a burglary. We’ve had our house broken into,” she said.

She’s disabled and lives on a fixed income. Her dogs – both a mix of pitbull and rotweiller – are loyal and protective of her and her children, but some landlords won’t rent to owners of those breeds.

“My dogs are well-behaved, but some landlords don’t see it that way,” she said.

She’s looking for four bedrooms, a house in the country, and a place to feel safe, something less than $1,000. 

Advice for renters

Landlords are looking for solid employment and a steady income, said Carberry from Rent.com.

“Landlords really care about financial history,” he said. “Evictions are a red flag.”

But a co-signer, roommate or someone who can guarantee rent can help assuage a worried landlord. Also, the property owner is asking for a lease price, but a potential renter can offer something to sweeten the deal, including paying higher than asking price or agreeing to a longer lease.

Kim Strong can be reached at kstrong@gannett.com.