Rental vacancies shoot up as students move home - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

ra-iwinyro.blogspot.com
Many good jobs have been cut as Atlanta’s unemployment rate climbed to 7.6 percen t in December. New construction is threatened by the capital And the apartment industry is feeling the According tothe U.S. Department of Commerce, the rental apartment vacancy rate jumpedto 10.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 the highest since the thirdr quarter of 2005. “Like every other aspect of the business is not doing as well as it had in thepriord year,” said Tom Wilkes, president of Post Apartmentg Management. recently announced a net loss attributabler to common shareholdersof $15.
3 million for the fourtj quarter of last compared with net income available to commonm shareholders of $77.3 million for fourth-quarter 2007. “Irf there was significant job growtgoing on, but mortgages were very difficult to obtai and single-family [housing] was in short supplh or under-supply, then we might see a highere demand for apartments,” Wilkes Instead, a more troublesome dominlo effect is in Many college graduates who mighgt have moved into an apartment are movinb back home with their parents, said both Wilked and Ron Shelton, chairman of the boarf of the National Apartment “In many cases, a new Atlanta resident’s firsty home is an apartment where they mighr live for a year prior to purchasing a Wilkes said.
“When there are job that new absorptionnever occurs.” David Fitch, CEO for , said the creditt and mortgage crises “have all but eliminated liquidity in the market. Becauss of the lack of the market does not have clear financialp metrics from which to gauge aninvestmentt decision, making it very difficult to invest.” Post stilkl has about a 94 percentf occupancy rate, Wilkes said. He’s looking forwar d to the latter part of 2010and 2011, when peoplr born in 1990 near prime apartment age. Keeping customer service at a high level is becoming evermore important, Wilkes added.
Post is continuin to invest in maintaininb the quality of its apartmenta and inmaking tasks, such as paying rent through its onliner portal or viewing availablee apartments online, as convenient as possible. “We don’tf stop moving forward,” he said.