More owner-occupied homes becoming rentals

• What if the owners of today’s rental homes decide to sell? “Movement of housing stock back to owner-occupancy status … has the potential to undercut demand for new construction since most home building occurs in the owner-occupied sector,” Rosenthal says.
• “Underwater homes are notably more likely to transition into the rental sector, possibly because of reduced incentives to maintain the home and related decay,” notes Stuart Rosenthal, a Syracuse University professor, who authored the study.
• Owner-occupied homes with a combined loan-to-value ratio between 100 percent and 120 percent are between 1 and 2 percentage points more likely to become rentals, Rosenthal notes.
• The study shows that 6.5 percent of homes built before 2000 and 10.3 percent of homesbuilt in the 1990s went from owner-occupied to rental status.
• Also, certain neighborhood or structural attributes – like a waterfront location or being a detached property – also makes it less likely the property will turn from an owner-occupied home to a rental one, the study finds.
• A homeowner’s equity position is one of the central issues that prompts owners to take their property from owner-occupied to rental status, according to a new study from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Research Institute for Housing America.

Source : Florida Realtors