Rental Tenure Type and MSA-Level House Price Recovery from the Great Recession

Most United States MSAs saw their house prices plummet during the recent Great Recession. While many are only beginning to pull away from their lowest house prices in recent history, other MSAs are already well on their way to house price recovery. We believe that one attribute which separates these early winners is their rental tenure. MSAs with higher rental tenure possess a type of occupancy liquidity, allowing these areas more flexibility in their housing market which provides the opportunity for quicker house price recovery. We find an economically and statistically significant relationship between increased rental tenure and house price recovery for 2006 through 2010. These findings are amplified for both high growth and low density areas, and yet further enlarged for areas that are considered both high growth and low density. Additionally, we uncover a highly consistent, negative effect of population growth on house price recovery throughout our analysis