Single-Family Home Rents Flatten as Investors Saturate the Market (Pittsburgh: sales, 2013)

[john_pittsburgh]

I don't know how much this is true in Pittsburgh area. When I was looking for home for rent past 2 months in south hills (MTL, USC) , it was hard to find on my budget. My budget was around $1600 for 3 bedrooms. Of course we found the house in the same range but every time we went to see house it was already gone. Thank god we don't have pets else it would have been very difficult!
I don't think rent has gone down. In fact it has gone way up due to new assessment. I paid $1400 rent for better house last year.

Single-Family Home Rents Flatten as Investors Saturate the Market

Rents rose just 0.1% year-over-year on single-family homes and 2.9% on apartments. Locally, rents on single-family homes are flat or falling in Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Atlanta
The Trulia Price Monitor and the Trulia Rent Monitor are the earliest leading indicators of how asking prices and rents are trending nationally and locally. They adjust for the changing mix of listed homes and therefore show what’s really happening to asking prices and rents. Because asking prices lead sales prices by approximately two or more months, the Monitors reveal trends before other price indexes do. With that, here’s the scoop on where prices and rents are headed.
Prices Up 7.2% Year-over-Year, Rising in 91 of 100 Largest Metros
In March, asking home prices rose 1.1% month-over-month, seasonally adjusted. That’s an annualized growth rate of 14%. Quarter-over-quarter, prices are up 3.5%, seasonally adjusted. Year-over-year, prices are up 7.2% nationally and are higher than one year ago in 91 of the 100 largest metros.

[Hopes]

It has always been cheaper to own than rent here. That's why there are limited detached single family home rental options. Rent will only lower on single family homes when fewer people can afford to buy them. A building boom could cause it too via too many people moving out of older townships. As those home's values drop, they would be ideal for investors to snatch up for rentals. Since Pittsburghers aren't the type of people to go running to buy the newest construction, that means a building boom is only likely to happen if there was a population explosion. A population explosion will result in increased rent. No matter how I look at it, I don't see rent prices leveling off anytime soon in the Pittsburgh area for detached single family homes.

[Goinback2011]

Those 'investor saturated' cities are 00 housing bubble fatalities.