Pages

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Rents Decline For First Time in 5 Years

With the increasing unemployment rate and recession, people are not much willing to spend for an expensive apartment. This gradually resulted in plummeting of home rentals all over the country.

According to a study by Reis Inc, the rents of the apartments had declined for the first time in five years. Asking rents fell 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 from the third quarter, to $1,052 on average. The trend is similar with the effective rents (rent actually paid by tenants) as they fell 0.4 percent from previous quarter to $996 on average.

At the same time there has been an increase in vacancy rate. It is estimated that vacancy rates rose to 6.6 percent from 5.7 percent just a year ago.

The unemployment rate is the major reason behind this. According to US bureau of Labor Stats, the number of unemployed citizens increased from 632,000 to 11.1 million, with the start of the recession.

No comments: