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Housing

Apartment Vacancies At All-Time Lows

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Apartment vacancy rates rose to their lowest level since 2001, according to research firm Reis Inc. Part of the reason is an influx of young people into the rental market. Another is that people who have lost their homes–or given them up–have entered the renters pool. National rental vacancy rates were 4.9% in the first quarter compared to 6.2% in the same quarter a year ago. Rental prices are likely to go up because of the number of occupied apartments.

The trend could have odd effects on the housing market. On the one hand, people who have left homes tend to increase the overall inventory of houses, which should drive price and probably demand down. Potential buyers do not want to purchase homes for prices that are likely to continue to fall. On the other hand, high rent costs and low mortgage rates could bring renters who have to pay more for their residences back into the home market.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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