APARTMENT NEWS

ARCHIVES 2010:

Apartment occupancy up, rents down in Upstate SC - 01/09/10
Developers building fewer units as more people get pushed into rental market
By Angelia Davis

A combination of slower construction of new multi-family units and mounting job losses may be causing more Upstate residents to rent apartments.

The occupancy rate for the Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson area rose to just above 88 percent, according to the latest report from Real Data.

Jenny Shelden Pauswinski, multi-family market analyst for Real Data, said the Greenville area had more than 1,680 new apartment units come online in the past 18 months, which is part of the reason there had been a decline in occupancy over the past year.

Pauswinski said development of new units has since slowed and that should allow more units to be absorbed. “Otherwise, it’s just a matter of job losses,” she said.

Greenville County's jobless rate was at 10.5 percent in November, the last month for which numbers are available, with 23,773 people out of work and actively seeking a job.

The third quarter occupancy rate is higher that it was six months ago but lower than it was a year ago, Pauswinski said.

That, combined with the economy, caused a decline in occupancy over the past year and has applied downward pressure on rents, she said.

Rents are down 6.2 percent over the past year, with the average monthly rental rate in the region $617.

Greenville was among 27 out of 79 markets that saw vacancy levels fall in third quarter 2009 from that year’s second quarter, “indicating some signs of leasing activity given the tail end of the summer when households typically move,” according to Reis Inc., a New York based provider of commercial real estate market information.

Reis’ report said Greenville’s vacancy rate fell 30 basis points to 11.4 percent. The vacancy rate in Columbia dropped 20 points to 12.9 percent, while the rate in Charleston declined 100 points to 12 percent in third quarter 2009, Reis said.