Why buy when you can rent?

• Position: Charlotte

Residential rents in Charlotte continue to rise as demand from consumers wary of buying houses surges ahead of available rental properties. But that may change over the next few years because construction of multifamily housing is booming. In the first six months of 2012, the county issued more than 3,000 building permits for multifamily units and fewer than 900 for single-family houses. The bursting of the housing bubble upended long-held assumptions about the value of home ownership, and the home-sales market has yet to recover, says Ken Szymanski, executive director of the Greater Charlotte Apartment Association. "Consumers are no longer convinced that buying is better than money in the bank. So the 28-year-old single female who used to say, 'Oh, I'd better buy a house, I'd he stupid not to,' is now saying, 'Why would I buy a house?'"

According to Charlotte-based Real Data LLC, an apartment market-research company, the average rent in the Charlotte metro fell 7.2% to $697 between August 2008 and August 2009. It has risen 20.4% since, reaching $839 in September 2012. The vacancy rate, which hit its recession high of 13.6% in March 2010, was just 5.8%. "With the new construction boom, a lot of apartments are either under construction or planned," says Engle Addington, an analyst for Real Data. "If those come online in the next year or two, you'll see rents start to mitigate, there'll he more competition and property owners will start to offer more rent concessions: one month...