Housing News Digest, November 3

Apartment vacancies below 5%

Rental losses due to concessions, discounts and delinquencies fell from 2010’s third-quarter rate of 13.6 percent down to 10.4 percent during the third quarter of this year.

“We’re starting to see concessions go away and all those offers for free rent are becoming rare as vacancies fall,” said Ryan McMaken, a spokesman for the Colorado Division of Housing. “Delinquencies are still an issue, though, as renters confront unemployment and declining wages.”

HBA resolves HQ deal

The HBA of Metro Denver, which had been facing a foreclosure of its headquarters building in Centennial, resolved the issue this week with the sale of the building.

“We are very fortunate that the deal closed,” said Jeff Willis, the executive vice president of Berkeley Homes, who chaired the effort to resolve the issue.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

The problem arose when Colorado Capital Bank refused to renew a loan on the 27,000-square-foot building at 9033 E. Easter Place, according to a HBA member familiar with the situation.

Gardens on Havana getting homes at last

Schultz said the apartments are expected to be built east of Joliet Street on vacant land south of East Arkansas Drive.

According to the Colorado Division of Housing, apartment vacancy around Colorado and in metro Denver are at all-time lows and rents are climbing as a result. That combined with the Gardens location make the project appear to be a good fit, Condos said.

“If you are an apartment renter you want to be closer to where all the action is, whether it’s your job or shopping or whatever the other amenities culture-wise there might be,” he said. “It has the pedestrian friendly amenity of that shopping center that is brand spanking new that we are going to be part of if we bring it to fruition.”

Apartment vacancies lower, rents higher in Denver metro region
An apartment in metro Denver keeps getting harder to find, as vacancy rates remained below 5 percent in the third quarter of this year, according to a new report from the Apartment Association of Metro Denver and the Colorado Division of Housing.

At a 4.9 percent, the most recent quarterly vacancy rate is the lowest third-quarter mark since 2000, the report found. Last year's third-quarter rate was 5.3 percent.

Rents rise, vacancies stay low for Denver-area apartments
Metro Denver apartment rents continued to rise in the third quarter and the vacancy rate remained below 5 percent, signs of one of the healthiest apartment markets the area has seen in a decade, according to a report Thursday.

“Vacancy rates remain near 10-year lows and the vacancy rate has dropped year-over-year for the past eight quarters in a row,” said report author Ron Throupe, assistant professor of business at the University of Denver . “This is the second-lowest vacancy rate we’ve seen in any quarter since 2001.”

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011, 8:01 am

The apartment vacancy rate in Denver hit a 10-year low in the third-quarter, prompting a spike in rental prices, the Colorado Division of Housing said Thursday.

The housing division and the Apartment Association of Metro Denver reached that conclusion after conducting a joint study on rents in the city.

Denver area rental vacancies drop to 10-year low
The study found that Denver's third-quarter apartment vacancy rate fell to 4.9%, down from 5.3% a year earlier, but up from 4.8% in the second quarter.

"Vacancy rates remain near 10-year lows and the vacancy rate has dropped year-over-year for the past eight quarters in a row," said the report's author Ron Throupe, assistant professor of business at the University of Denver. "This is the second-lowest vacancy rate we’ve seen in any quarter since 2001."

Metro Denver apartment rental market stays tight in third quarter
"Given the limited number of new additions to the inventory in the last two years, and especially during the last year, a somewhat lowering of the high unemployment rate, continued immigration, increase in metro area natural population, the very similar vacancy rate this quarter was expected," the report states.

Average rent increased to $936.46 from $915.08 during the second quarter and $912.68 in the third quarter of last year.

Metrolist appoints interim COO in wake of CEO’s departure
Metrolist Inc. hired Kirby Slunaker to serve as interim COO in the wake of its former CEO resigning last month.

Slunaker will take over day-to-day operations of Metrolist while the board conducts a national search for a new CEO next year. Patricia Bybee recently resigned that position after 27 years.