SHORT LIST

Rental Institutions

Investors who own residential property in the United States earned an average annual return of 9.06 percent in the third quarter of 2014, down from 9.56 percent in 2013, according to a recent study by RealtyTrac. Median home prices in the 586 counties tracked by the report rose more than 7 percent on average in the third quarter of 2014 compared to a year ago, while average rents for three-bedroom homes increased less than 1 percent.

Daren Blomquist, a vice president at RealtyTrac, says the market for rentals is softening a bit. But “in the high-risk, high-yield markets, where unemployment and vacancy rates are higher than national averages, the average return was a whopping 19 percent, actually up from a year ago thanks to a strong increase in rental rates. Home prices, meanwhile, were more volatile in the high-risk, high-yield markets, with three out of the 16 posting double-digit percentage decreases in median home prices from a year ago,” he says.