Lehigh Valley rental market more competitive than Philly
If you think it’s hard to find a good apartment in the Lehigh Valley, you’re not wrong.
A recent survey by RentCafe shows that the Lehigh Valley continues to have an extremely competitive rental market, more competitive even than Philadelphia, it said.
The survey analyzed 139 U.S. rental markets using metrics like occupancy rates, the number of renters per vacant units, and lease renewal rates.
The survey showed that in the Lehigh Valley as many as 18 prospective renters competed for the same vacant apartment during the peak rental season. That’s significantly higher than the 10 applicants competing for each apartment in Philadelphia. Furthermore, apartment seekers in Lehigh Valley had limited options to choose from, as a staggering 78.8% of renters chose to stay put.
Developers are trying to keep up with the demand, building new apartment units, but despite a slight increase of 0.81% in recently built apartments, the occupancy rate in Lehigh Valley remained extremely high at 96.8%.
Under these tight market conditions RentCafe said apartments were snatched up within 35 days, which is two days faster than the national average of 37 days.
On a national scale, the rental market was moderately competitive during the peak rental season, scoring a Rental Competitiveness Index (RCI) score of 60. In stark contrast, Lehigh Valley had a RCI score of 118 out of 130.