Dupre + Scott’s 1-19 Unit Apartment Report: Part One

It’s that time again…birds are singing, it’s starting to warm up out there, and the days are, gloriously, getting longer every day.

That’s right, we’re well into Spring–and that means it’s also time for Dupre+Scott’s 1-19 Unit Apartment Report Executive Summary! It came out a couple of days ago, and we’re all ready to cut it into some manageable pieces for your benefit.

This year, the report’s focus is on rents and vacancies. More specifically, “how you feel about the market depends on what you have.” That’s because smaller units are bringing in the biggest bang for the buck these days, with lower vacancy and higher rents. But let’s back up a little bit. We’ll start, as we so often do, with the numbers.

First of all, the average rent for a single-family house in King and Snohomish counties is currently $1,811 per month; that’s down just a tad from last year. Meanwhile, the average rent for multiplexes–that’s 2 to 4 unit properties–is hovering at $1,038 per month, and basically hasn’t changed at all since this time last year. Finally, we have the 5-19 unit properties–rent is up almost eight percent from last year, at $922 per month.

So are rents performing the best? While we might expect rents to do better in larger units, when we factor in the higher vacancies, it’s just not the case. Rents are strong across the map this year, but Dupre+Scott found  that they’re climbing the most in small units; studios, for instance, saw rent rising over 5% this year.

So that’s the lay of the land when it comes to rental rates. But what does the future hold? Check out Part II on Friday for more on what property managers are planning on for the next six months, plus the lowdown on currently offered incentives. See you then!