Listening to real estate experts and economists lately, you’ll see that the writing is on the wall: if we’re not already in a recession, we’ll be in one soon. The past few years have been an economic rollercoaster, particularly for those of us in the real estate industry. After riding the wave of a white-hot market, it can feel as though an era of unprecedented growth is over.

Don’t get spooked by talk of a 2022 real estate market recession. Today’s market looks nothing like 2008 – and neither will its recession. Whether you find yourself worried or hopeful about the future of U.S. real estate, there are a few key things to know about today’s state of the market.

There’s a wide variety of ways to invest in real estate. And we can tell you from experience that not all those ways are equal. Nothing has made that more apparent than the comparison between buy-and-hold rental investors and house-flippers in today’s economic landscape.

Watching the real estate market from the outside, you might be led to believe that the good times are at the end of their roll. And while rising interest rates, high prices, and other demanding conditions in the real estate market could reflect that across various sectors of the industry, it hasn’t been true of one vital, investor-centric niche: the single-family rental.

Investors are no doubt feeling the economic pressures of inflation, rising interest rates, and a challenging housing market. Of course, with rental rates also on the rise, it can offset some of the squeeze on your profit margins.

On the cusp of the summer home-buying season, it’s becoming more and more evident that the housing shortage poses a problem for the average buyer. In fact, there’s a shortage of some 5 million homes across the nation. 

According to the National Association of Realtors, 99% of tracked metro areas experienced year-over-year price gains in the first quarter of 2021. Of those markets, 89% experienced double-digit growth.

The past two years have brought us a wildly unpredictable world. Let’s be honest, a lot of us are still on edge! The pandemic has stoked public health concerns, wild political debates, financial turmoil, and an unpredictable – if surprisingly high-performing – real estate market.

Every real estate investor is actively or acutely aware of their market conditions, be it in their specific investment markets or in the United States as a whole.

Forbes recently published an article from their Real Estate Council, detailing eleven predictions about the future of the real estate market for the remainder of 2021 and through 2022. In the tumultuous real estate market we’ve experienced, a lot of us are looking for clues as to what’s next.