DALLAS—Nationally, monthly employment growth has exceeded200,000 jobs for the past nine months. Locally, the progress hasbeen more variable, and one indicator of this is the correlationbetween job growth and rentgrowth, which dovetail 83% of the time.

When these two statistics don't jibe, a market experiences “highjob growth and low effective rent growth or vice versa, accordingto a report from Dallas-based Axiometrics, whichexamined the top 54 apartment markets to see how each fared. “Insuch situations, something other than job growth influenceseffective rent growth.”

Of those 54 markets, 15 saw job growth that ranged from weak tonegative during the third quarter, and accordingly barelyregistered effective rent growth during that time period. Detroitand Albuquerque had job growth of -0.2% and -0.3%, respectively, inQ3, and rent growth in both markets lagged the national average by110 basis points to reach 2.8%, compared to 3.9% for the US awhole.