If you’re one of the renters in Atlanta, you know rent can be a huge financial burden. Over the last ten years, rent for Atlantans as steadily, and sometimes quickly, increased, creating problems with housing security in the city.
It’s time to breathe a sigh of relief. Luckily, rent prices seem to be staying the same, or even falling in some cases, in metro Atlanta.
What do you mean?
In a nutshell, what’s happening is actually very simple. Massive, ongoing construction and housing projects have created more housing units than there are tenants. With empty units sitting vacant and earning no revenue, landlords have to lower prices or waive fees to entice tenants.
For the first time in years and years, the pendulum has swung to the side of the renters.
In many cases, renters now have the power and landlords are the ones trying to attract new tenants. This looks like lower monthly rent, waived application fees, first month free deals, and much more.
And this pull in favor of the renters is expected to continue, unless there’s a sudden, huge wave of new residents moving in to the Atlanta area.
What are the stats?
An article for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution written by Micheal E. Kanell reports that, according to ALN Apartment Data, last month, in October, almost 23,000 units were in the “lease-up” phase, meaning that landlords were searching for new tenants. And nearly 192,000 other units were under construction in the city. With all of this new housing, the competition for new renters was ON.
ALN Apartment Data also reports that currently, occupancy rate for metro Atlanta is 88.7%, which is actually down 3.7% from this time a year ago.
