Best time of year to find an apartment (renters, buy)

[Dthraco]

I had an interesting discussion with a local realtor who handles a complex of rental units and thought it might be relevant to the forum.

I asked her what the rental units were renting for. She said that this time of year the prices are inflated. This time of year (March) rents are higher because there is so much demand. She said that some people rented the units for $1,500, and some for $1,800. (All the units are the same size.) She said that this time of year the snowbirds are in their rental units and that their displaced renters are looking. She said that when it gets cold on the mainland people move here and look for rental units. And the third factor she mentioned was UH students that ebb and flow as school is in our out.

So that got me thinking. What would be the best time of year to find a rental? It would have to be when UH is full on or getting out for a long break, when the snowbirds are not here, and when people aren't moving here to avoid the cold weather. All of that points to summer.

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by Dthraco

So that got me thinking. What would be the best time of year to find a rental? It would have to be when UH is full on or getting out for a long break, when the snowbirds are not here, and when people aren't moving here to avoid the cold weather. All of that points to summer.

Generally, in any geographic region, summer has the most rental listings - not just due to factors like UH, but kids in general, people don't tend to like uproot their kids.

With that said - although summer tends to have the most listings it also has the most demand/people looking - you just have more options of units.

I don't buy the "snowbird" aspect of impacting the rental market - I've never had a "snowbird" look at one of my listings mainly as they don't want to engage in a 1 year lease. They tend to rent the illegal vacation rentals on VRBO as short term rentals. Illegal VRBO rentals in my opinion has more of an impact on the tight rental market than just the "snowbirds" who come a few months.

[Dthraco]

I thought it was odd that she said snowbirds kick their tenants out.

I assumed she meant that the snowbirds own their places and only offer short term leases that leave a gap for the time that they are on island. That is partly because my definition of a snowbid is someone who has property here and someplace like Oregon or Colorado, and they just swap locations for favorable weather.

[ScottStielow]

Some people do the the Timeshares to move around in the winter months. Read about in a magazine awhile back. Do not know very many who do the Timeshare program personally.
Summer would be the time to look for rentals. When UH is not in session.

[hotzcatz]

Yeah, when school is out and there's less folks visiting, you'd expect less demand for housing. Our quilting group doubles in size during the winter, not sure where they all live, though. But they have to be somewhere.