08/05/2008

Associated Press

Though real estate agents always seem to say it's a good time to buy, many people are deciding it's the perfect moment to rent.

In Ashland, where house prices soared during the boom, property managers say more applicants are seeking rental housing and more homeowners are trying to find tenants.

"We've definitely seen a lot of people who are renting out their house because they can't sell it," Jennifer Crane, owner of Crane Property Management, told the Ashland Daily Tidings.

Homes for sale in Ashland had been on the market an average of 152 days as of Friday, said Colin Mullane, the chairman of the Southern Oregon Multiple Listing Service Statistics Committee and a broker with Re/Max Realty Group in Ashland.

The average wait for a sale has been steadily climbing. In the first six months of 2007, existing Ashland homes were on the market an average of 98 days before selling.

Of the 302 existing homes on the market in Ashland, 180 are listed at $420,000 or above. At those prices, Mullane said, it's tough to find a renter who can cover the mortgage payment. A $1 million home, for example, might only fetch $2,500 per month in rent payments, not nearly enough to cover a $6,000 monthly mortgage payment.

With those margins, more people are also looking to rent homes to get more for their money, said Everett Eichler, owner of Classic Property Management.

"A lot of times people will say, 'Well, gee, I'm just paying somebody's mortgage,' but you're paying far less in rent than what it would be in mortgage payments, and you don't have to do upkeep," he said.

Crane, meanwhile, said that even though more homeowners are looking for tenants, vacancies have declined because more people want to rent. In some weeks, her company rents half of its properties before they are advertised.

"We have a lot of applicants who have the financial means to buy, but they don't want to buy right now because of the market so they're choosing to rent for a year, which I do think is different than the past," she said.

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Information from: The Ashland Daily Tidings, http://www.dailytidings.com