Everyone needs a place to live, and that truism is underpinning growth in rental and for-sale housing markets.

In March, the strongest-performing property sector was apartment REITs, which advanced 7.4 percent. REIT investors may have been responding to positive news from the sector, with rents growing in March — up 2.5 percent on a year-over-year basis, according to Yardi Matrix. Concerns persist, however, that apartment rent growth is decelerating; multifamily rents rose an average of 0.4 percent in the first quarter, reports Yardi Matrix.

The apartment market is benefiting from a strong employment market — job gains averaged 202,000 per month in the first quarter — and a hot single-family home market. According to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices, home prices are up 6.2 percent year-over-year as of January (the most recent data available).

“The home-price surge continues,” said David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the index com