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Study Finds the Nation’s Best Counties for Buying SFRs
The report analyzed single-family rental returns in 389 U.S. counties.
ATTOM Data Solutions has released its Q1 2020 Single-Family Rental Market report, which ranks the best U.S. markets for buying single-family rental properties in 2020, which has found that the counties with the highest potential annual gross rental yields for 2020 are Baltimore City/County, Md. (28.9 percent); Cumberland County, N.J., in the Vineland-Bridgeton metro area (20.1 percent); Bibb County, Ga., in the Macon metro area (18.2 percent); Mobile County, Ala. (15.7 percent); and Clayton County, Ga., in the Atlanta metro area (15.1 percent). Baltimore City, Cumberland and Bibb counties also had the top three yields in 2019.
The report analyzed single-family rental returns in 389 U.S. counties with a population of at least 100,000 and sufficient rental and home price data. Rental data comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and home price data comes from publicly recorded sales deed data collected and licensed by ATTOM Data Solutions.
The average annual gross rental yield (annualized gross rent income divided by median purchase price of single-family homes) among the 389 counties is 8.4 percent for 2020, down slightly from an average of 8.6 percent in 2019.
“The business of buying single-family homes for rent has lost a little steam this year across the United States, as rents aren’t rising quite as fast as prices for investment rental properties in a majority of the country,” said Todd Teta, chief product officer at ATTOM Data Solutions. “But from the national perspective, things are generally holding steady for landlords in the single-family home rental market. Also, profit trends are moving in favor of investors in higher-rent counties and against those in lower-rent regions.”
Among counties with a population of at least one million, the highest potential gross rental yields in 2020 are in Wayne County (Detroit), Mich. (14.5 percent); Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Ohio (11.8 percent); Cook County, Ill. (9.3 percent); Dallas County, Texas (9.1 percent); and Harris County, Texas (8.7 percent).
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