Workers set up scaffolding at an apartment building under construction in East Montpelier, Vermont, in this file photo. With demand for apartments surging, rents are projected to rise for a fifth straight year in 2014. — AP CALIFORNIA — These are good times for US landlords. For many tenants, not so much. With demand for apartments surging, rents are projected to rise for a fifth straight year. Even a rise in apartment construction is unlikely to provide much relief anytime soon. That bodes well for building owners and their investors. Yet the landlord-friendly trends will likely further strain the finances of many renters. A 6-percent rise in apartment rents between 2000 and 2012 has been exacerbated by a 13 percent drop in income among renters nationally over the same period, according to a report from Apartment List, a rental housing website, which used inflation-adjusted figures. “That's what we call the affordability gap,” says John Kobs, Apartment List's chief executive. “I don't see that improving in the near future.” Demand for rental housing has grown as the US economy has strengthened since the end of the Great Recession nearly five years ago. Steady job growth has made it possible for more people to move out on their own and rent their own apartments. Yet rising home prices are preventing many from buying. A combination of rising rents and sluggish pay gains will likely continue to weigh on the US economy, which relies primarily on consumer spending. Rental demand has risen in much of the United States since the housing market collapsed in 2007. A cascade of foreclosures forced many people out of their homes and into apartment leases. At the same time, construction of apartments was stalled until the last couple of years because many builders couldn't get loans during the credit crisis. Add to that several recent trends, from rising mortgage rates to stagnant pay, which have combined to discourage many people from buying homes. It's resulted in fewer places to lease and a bump up in rents. The national vacancy rate for apartments shrank from 8 percent to 4.1 percent from 2009 to 2013, according to commercial real estate data provider Reis Inc. As a result, landlords were able to raise rents in many markets. The average national effective rent rose 12 percent to $1,083 during those years, according to Reis, which tracked data for apartments in buildings with 40 units or more. Effective rent is what a tenant pays after factoring in landlord concessions, such as a free month at move-in. Over the same period, the median price of an existing US home has risen about 14 percent, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. Among major US markets, rents rose the most in Seattle in 2013, up 7.1 percent from the year before, according to Reis. The second-biggest increase, 5.6 percent, was in San Francisco. Nationwide, effective rent rose 3.2 percent last year compared with 2012. Rents rose even as the nation added about 127,000 apartments, the most since 2009, according to Reis. The addition of those apartments hasn't been enough to absorb the surging demand for rentals. The Picerne Group is among the apartment complex owners with buildings under construction. The company, which owns properties in California, Arizona, Nevada and Colorado, expects to break ground soon on luxury rental buildings in the Southern California cities of Cerritos and Ontario. — AP
