Apartment vacancy rates register lows not seen in decades.
Apartment vacancies are at an all-time low—again—going back three decades. September was the fourth consecutive month of record-breaking low vacancies at only 2.7%, according to a RealPage analytics blog by Jay Parsons, Deputy Chief Economist and Vice President of Asset Optimization.
“The fact that more new renters are entering the front door, but fewer existing renters are leaving out the back door is an unprecedented phenomenon that translates to a severe shortage in rental housing availability at every price point and in essentially every city across the country,” says Parsons.
Among the 150 largest U.S. metros, 140 came in with a vacancy rate under 4%, 113 metros were below 3% and 48 were below 2%. Orange County, Calif., and Providence, R.I., were the top two metros, both with vacancy rates of 1.12%. Riverside, Calif., at 1.37% and San Diego at 1.53% followed. Detroit, Cincinnati and Milwaukee were the only top 15 metros not on the coasts.
Apartment completions are at a three-decade high of more than 362,000 during the past 12 months. Meanwhile, retention is peaking at 58% in September 2021 compared to the previous high in the spring of 2020 at just shy of 58%.