San Joaquin Homes Community Blog

The San Joaquin County apartment rental market continues to be strong, but throughout the West, rents aren't climbing because of the economic slowdown, according to the latest quarterly report from the Novato research firm RealFacts, which tracks trends in the apartments industry.

The average rent in the Central Valley remained basically flat from the third quarter to the fourth last year, climbing from $917 to $918, but was up 1.3 percent year to year.

In San Joaquin County, the average rent even slipped a few bucks, from $883 in the third quarter to $879 last quarter, the study reported. This even as occupancy rose from 94.8 percent in the third quarter to 95 percent - considered excellent in the rental sector - in the fourth quarter.

The troubled economy is taking its toll, leaving rental markets in most areas either down or basically flat last quarter, said RealFacts spokesman Gerald Cox.

"It really is the economy," he said.

A struggling economy translates to a softer rental market because there's pressure to keep monthly rents down, he said.

Even in markets with strong occupancy growth over all of last year, the last quarter saw a flat or negative market.

The Bay Area, which saw rent growth ranging between 9 percent and 11 percent over the year, saw most of that increase in the first half of last year.

"I don't see where any growth is coming from this year," Cox said.

The survey looks only at apartment complexes with at least 50 units, ranging from studios to three-bedroom units.

Still, in San Joaquin County, the house rental market appears to be gaining momentum.

Jeffrey Michael, who will be moving to San Joaquin County from Maryland to take over the directorship of University of the Pacific's Business Forecasting Center in March, said this week that when he inquired via e-mail about a rental house in Stockton, he learned that there already were 15 applications posted within 36 hours.

"Clearly, there's some demand out there for housing," he said.

Norbert Huston, a Stockton real estate broker who has managed rental properties for more than two decades, said demand for rental homes has doubled since the summer, likely because more and more people had lost their homes to foreclosure and needed new housing.

"I'm tired," he said. "I'm showing properties like crazy and processing applications like crazy - and they're getting rented."

Rents haven't shot up, though, he said, though he expects they surely will by summer. A nice three-bedroom, two-bath house of about 1,800 square feet in Stockton rents these days for between $1,300 and $1,400 a month, he said.

"We had an inventory, but that's getting eaten up," Huston said. "And that will mean increasing rents."

Contact reporter Bruce Spence at (209) 943-8581 or bspence@recordnet.com.