luck and rental timing (opinions) (Bend: apartment, rentals, good credit)

[ybakos]

Hi everyone,
I know rentals are absurdly tight in Bend, but I wonder if any of you might share your opinion on probabilities: have rentals typically become more, or less, available during the summer months, compared to spring (March/April)? For example, in many towns with college campuses, rentals tend to turn over quite a bit around May and/or August due to students who tend to move around that time.

I'm relocating to Bend soon (sorry!), and have a job lined up but no place to live yet. My plan is to try to find a place in March during a visit, but if I could gamble on higher availability in mid-summer, I'll wait until then before signing anything. (The key word being gamble - I realize I'm going to have to be lucky either way.)

What would you tend to place a bet on? (e.g. March or July?)

[Thom52]

Its a catch-22.
everyone shuffles around after school gets out and before school is back in session.
So this is when more places are available, but more people are in competition for the places.
Ironically, this means if you can find a place in March, there is a chance the landlord will be more desperate to rent and you are more likely to be able to wheel and deal.

Our recent house closing was supposed to have been in August. Due to the job situation in Bend being tougher than I could ever have imagined, we ended up becoming landlords instead of moving in, when it was finally finished and closed in early late September. It was impossible to rent at that time. We ended up giving it a substantial temporary discount to get some tenants into the house. It would have rented easily in August.

Nobody wants to shuffle their kids around during the school year, and that seems to drive most of the market.

I think you can generally get better deals with moving companies in off-season as another benefit of a March move. But it is definitely a bit of a gamble.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Nobody wants to move during the winter in Bend, so your best bet for a rental is the winter months. Tenants are out there looking in winter but a lot of them are not qualified people, so if you are qualified, you have a very good chance.

March is the very beginning of moving season. There will be fewer tenants looking than there will be in summer, and mostly unqualified tenants looking, so if you have good credit, a paying job, good landlord references, don't smoke, don't dope, and don't own a pit-bull, you have an excellent chance of being selected.

June and July are in the height of the moving season. Kids are out of school, so that is the best time to move them. Weather is most likely to be good and it won't be snowing as you move your furniture. There might or might not be more rentals available, but you will be competing with better qualified tenants. Lots of tenants moving does not mean that each one has vacated a house that now becomes available. A lot of the tenants in the summer are moving in from another area of the country.

I suggest that you be cautious about trying to wheel and deal. In the current market, no landlord is desperate, and the rent is generally what it is, fixed rate.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Be aware that if you find a place in March, the landlord will not hold it vacant for you until summer. You will have to start paying the rent, the water, the power and heating bill.

Several of the apartment buildings have wait lists. You can apply, be accepted, and called when there is a vacancy for you. You don't pay rent until there is an apartment for you, but there is also no guarantee about when that unit will come available. They might not have a place for you over the summer. At this time of the year, they have no way of knowing who will move out and who will stay. They don;t know when they will have vacancies.

No landlord who knows there will be a vacancy in June is advertising now. It takes about 24 hours to get enough applications that at least one of them will qualify. No need to advertise months in advance.

[ybakos]

Thanks oregonwoodsmoke. Yeah, I've never been in a market where negotiating rent is even a thought. The March scenario you describe is what I'm hoping for. Second-to-worst case is I get lucky finding a place in March and pre-pay a couple months rent even though I may not move my junk in June. I'm a legit tenant (five out of your six ain't bad, right?) so hopefully luck rolls my way.

I appreciate the perspective.

[redguard57]

If you wait until summer, there will be more vacancies, but also more people trying to rent units and higher rents.

[ybakos]

I got lucky. 2nd day in town, mid-March, and found a great owner-managed rental in a duplex.