According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, rental vacancy rates are going up in many markets. This is generally attributed to the softening of the housing market and more would-be sellers deciding to rent out their homes instead of selling them.
Yet despite the general tone of the article–discussing how the rental market is growing–the author mentions that “vacancy rates fell in 47 of 79 markets” tracked. To me, that doesn’t sound like vacancies are increasing as dramatically as the general tone of the article implies! What do you think??
As the article continues, “rents are rising strongly and vacancies are falling in many markets, particularly those with healthy economies that haven’t been affected severely by the carnage in the housing industry. Vacancy rates fell in 47 of the 79 markets tracked by Reis, and average rents saw their largest fourth-quarter increase since 2000.” Of course, these statistics are at the very end of the article, after many paragraphs describing how the rental market is increasing. How many people actually made it to the end of the article to see these figures, I wonder?
Interestingly, Tacoma is specifically mentioned as having the greatest DROP in vacancy rates in the entire country. According to the WSJ, “Vacant units fell by 0.9 percentage point to 5.3 percent,” in Tacoma during the period discussed.
To read the entire article, click here.
Posted by marzanoteam 
