There's no doubt in my mind that low rates are driving up house prices, but the link to rental prices is a bit more tenuous to me. Yeah, the link to house pric

There's no doubt in my mind that low rates are driving up house prices, but the link to rental prices is a bit more tenuous to me. Yeah, the link to house prices is clear: low rates means you can afford a larger mortgage, so prices get bid up. The link to rents is less direct: low rates are effected by loose monetary policy -- by central banks pumping money into the market. This means more inflation (not quite the same thing as "rents getting more expensive" of course.) In theory, anyway. Inflation has actually been very low even with historically loose monetary policy, so folks have been flummoxed (but generally positive about it, because they think it has let them encourage job growth and economic expansion more than they otherwise would have been able to.)