One of my most important metrics for jumping back into the real estate investing game is on the rise: apartment demand is finally showing signs of life.

With millions of families switching from being homeowners to renters, apartment-building values have soared.

That isn’t good for renters, who enjoyed falling rents, landlord concessions and even offers of incentives such as flat-screen televisions to sign leases after the recession hit the housing market. Those days appear to be over. Now, rents are rising and vacancies are falling in many markets, making it harder to find a place.

Just ask Lindsey Neiling. The 23-year-old Chicago resident is facing a rent increase to $765 from $720 on her studio apartment when her lease is up in April. “They know they can get more for my unit,” she says. In Washington, you have to make quick decisions because apartments aren’t staying vacant for long, says Cameron Hardesty.

Landlords Seize Upper Hand in Apartment Market
Dawn Wotapka, WSJ

Obviously, this is location specific since rental demand is generally considered tied to the local job market, but with so much bad press surrounding the real estate market on a near constant basis and everyone knows at least one person who got burned in the real estate bubble, it’s no surprise that prospective homeowners are taking the route more safely traveled — by renting instead of buying.

I always say that successful investors buck the trends and use counterintuitive logic by buying when everyone else is going the opposite way, so if you fancy yourself a landlord with cash to deploy, it might be worth taking a peek at the distressed property sales in your favorite neighborhoods. This shouldn’t be incredibly difficult to accomplish since 72% of metro areas saw an uptick in foreclosures in 2010.