Well, here we are in the midst of the slow season. There is some good news and some not so good news to pass along.
Fist the not so good news. We are still seeing the same factors we have been dealing with for some time. Slow job growth (Level 3, one of our largest local empolyers, is laying off 600), a sharp increase in foreclosures (up 30% from this time last year), and others are working to keep lots of properties on the market. This high number of properties are working to keep rents down. If you look at the chart you will see that we have a slightly lower number of rentals advertized this month (~800) as compared to last year at this time (~962). This is a welcome trend but it is still above the level of January of '03 when we had about 530 available.
Now for the good news. We are seeing a dramatic increase in the number of prospective tenants calling about our vacancies. This was slow the first week of January but starting about the 10th the phones started ringing off the hook. We are even getting a positive reaction to raising the rents slightly starting in the peak season (Jul-Aug).
So, with the economy still improving (slowly!) we should also see the same trends filtering down. We are also forecasting that the Fastracks referendum will improve the rental market. This referendum, passed last November, will give a big push to improving the local mass transit picture in the Denver Metro Area. Once they get started this will mean jobs and jobs mean renters. This will be a slow start but every little bit helps.
