The house rental market is notoriously hard to track, because it changes quickly, in prices and units on the market. Especially in Denver's soft economy, many people will try to rent their homes when they can't sell, but then become disillusioned at being a landlord and sell the home for a lower price, the study notes. Also, you don't have the large owners, as you do with the traditional apartment market.
Von Stroh's study found that in the first quarter of 2003, the overall vacancy rate was 7.54%. By contrast, traditional apartments had an overall vacancy rate of 13.1%, the highest since 1986. Von Stroh, however, doesn't have the historic information for rental houses as he does for the traditional multifamily units.
Von Stroh also found a wide range of vacancy rates in the metro area. Boulder reports 100% occupancies with no vacancies, while Arapahoe County had the highest vacancy rate, 12.56%. As far as other counties, Adams had an overall vacancy rate of 11.11%; Douglas County's overall vacancy rate was 7.32%; Denver County's overall vacancy rate was 6.43%; and Jefferson County's overall rate was 6.92%.
Von Stroh tracked rents by one to five-bedroom houses and included square feet and monthly rents in each category. At this time, Von Stroh's study is only available to those who participate in the survey. He's looking to add to the approximate 2,000 respondents in his first survey.
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