Forecast: Rentals stay full
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A Baton Rouge appraiser who tracks the area apartment market said very low vacancy rates should persist through 2009, despite the addition of 5,000 units in the greater Baton Rouge market.
That’s not what Wesley Moore of Cook Moore & Associates expected earlier this year. The 10 percent jump in units since Hurricane Katrina — raising the apartment count to an estimated 55,000 — figured to drive vacancies to 7 percent or 8 percent instead of the 2 percent to 3 percent being seen now, said Moore.
Steve Smith, chairman of the Baton Rouge Apartment Association, reported a strong occupancy rate of 97 percent this week in the 26,000 member apartments the group surveys annually. That’s an increase of 1 percent from 2007. Smith addressed the strength of the apartment market in a city-parish news conference this week aimed at bolstering confidence in the local real estate market.
Difficulty in obtaining financing for houses and condos and fear of what the current economic situation might do to jobs have combined with a relatively strong Baton Rouge economy and continuing population gains to make apartment vacancies relatively rare, Moore said. It’s also a relatively lucrative market, with apartment owners generally not having to concede free months of rent to attract new tenants.
“Most of the product has hit the ground, but I still have not seen the big concessions that I had anticipated, partly because I think so many people who would have built a house and moved out of the rentals don’t have that option right now,” Moore said.
That’s not what Wesley Moore of Cook Moore & Associates expected earlier this year. The 10 percent jump in units since Hurricane Katrina — raising the apartment count to an estimated 55,000 — figured to drive vacancies to 7 percent or 8 percent instead of the 2 percent to 3 percent being seen now, said Moore.
Steve Smith, chairman of the Baton Rouge Apartment Association, reported a strong occupancy rate of 97 percent this week in the 26,000 member apartments the group surveys annually. That’s an increase of 1 percent from 2007. Smith addressed the strength of the apartment market in a city-parish news conference this week aimed at bolstering confidence in the local real estate market.
Difficulty in obtaining financing for houses and condos and fear of what the current economic situation might do to jobs have combined with a relatively strong Baton Rouge economy and continuing population gains to make apartment vacancies relatively rare, Moore said. It’s also a relatively lucrative market, with apartment owners generally not having to concede free months of rent to attract new tenants.
“Most of the product has hit the ground, but I still have not seen the big concessions that I had anticipated, partly because I think so many people who would have built a house and moved out of the rentals don’t have that option right now,” Moore said.
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