Question for apartment dwellers (Sacramento, Huntington Beach: real estate, apartments, foreclosures)

[streetscenes]

With the current meltdown in the single family housing market one of the strong parts of the real estate industry has been multi-family dwellings (usually defined by 5 or more units). By most measures this part of real estate is doing well with values holding steady and vacancies low. One of the trends has been that those who are being forclosed upon are moving into apartment units.

What I want to find out is if there is more to this than meets the eye. Some of the apartment managers or owners I talk to are seeing tenants having more difficulty in keeping up with the rent. With rising gas prices, rising food prices, declining work hours for hourly workers, etc. it would seem that evictions and vacancies would begin to increase.

So my questions for those who live in apartments is... Are you seeing more of your neighbors struggling with paying rent? Are there more evections, vacancies or turnover? If an apartment does become vacant does it take longer to get a new tenant? Thanks.

[BRinSM]

my wife and i have been looking off and on at finding a new place on the westside through craigslist, and from what i have noticed, units are staying on the market longer and in some cases, landlords/mgmt companies are lowering prices. i heard a while back that rents were supposed to go up because of foreclosures, but the opposite seems to be happening. i doubt rent prices will really drop as a whole, but i doubt they will increase much either. a stable rental market is probably what is best for our local economy right now anyways.

[LuckyGem]

Not where I am.

[ElleBebe]

We just moved to LA from the Sacramento area. Up there, it didn't seem like there was much of a problem filling units, but we lived in a college town with many students looking for housing.

When we were looking for a place down here, it seemed like every vacancy advertised on Craigslist disappeared within days; there were a couple times when we called about a listing an hour after it had gone up, and there were already applications in. The unit we moved into had only been vacant for three weeks, and during that time they had remodeled so it wasn't on the market anyway.

[streetscenes]

Thanks for the replies. I'm a little surprised to find that the sour economy has not dampned the rental market, yet.

[SandyCo]

There are at least three vacancies in my building, and at least two of them have been on the market for a while. I'm sure that the owner is trying to get the highest rent he possibly can, but with the economy in the state it's in, he may have to end up giving in a little. Then again, my building doesn't have secure parking, elevators, or central heat/air.

[Humanoid]

I live in a good sized complex and I have noticed more and more apartments sitting empty. Usually they like to turn them around within 2 weeks, but some have been empty for awhile now. I'm fairly close to a university so in July/August you get a lot of new tenants/tenants moving out. Seems like there are more people moving out then in though. The complex is on the high end so maybe that has something to do with it. Their specials keep getting more attractive though.

I don't recall any evictions though. Nothing has changed for me, not sure about my neighborhoods.

[Sorcerer68]

Our units are at the top of market rent and usually rent in a couple days with multiple applications.

[NefariousTheos]

It depends on the area (rermber location,location,location) and the price of rent. Luckly I moved out of the apartment life a while back but still have friends that do. the lower rent apartments always seem to have a higher turn around (but ya get what ya pay for) and the higher end ones usually takes a lil bit longer to fill, but with most of those the managers are usually abit more select to who they let in.

[streetscenes]

Originally Posted by NefariousTheos

It depends on the area (rermber location,location,location) and the price of rent. Luckly I moved out of the apartment life a while back but still have friends that do. the lower rent apartments always seem to have a higher turn around (but ya get what ya pay for) and the higher end ones usually takes a lil bit longer to fill, but with most of those the managers are usually abit more select to who they let in.

Thanks to all for the input. I do mostly exterior inspections on multi-family properties and don't get many opportunities to talk to the tenants, managers or owners. What I've noticed recently is just a few more "for rent" signs and some signs showing "move-in specials", especially true on some of the larger properties I see.

Recent conversations I've had include an apartment owner in Gardena who said he is having to work more and more with tenants to keep them current on rent. He also said he does what he can to keep tenants as vacancies are getting harder to fill. An apartment manager for a large complex in Huntington Beach recently told me that she noticed some tenants having problems but everyone is still paying rent. She especially noticed that familes with alot of back to school expenses were struggling.

One of the old axioms in the mortgage industry was that people pay the mortage before they pay other bills. This axiom is not very true in the current mortgage industry but it looks like correlation to paying the rent first still hold true.