Apartment Market Improves With Incoming Soldiers

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO-Fort Carson will soon be getting 3,700 new troops that will be transferred from South Korea. When that happens, expect a boost to the rental market, advises a new report by Doug Carter LLC Investment Real Estate Brokerage in Colorado Springs.The overall apartment occupancy rate for the city, the second largest in the state, is currently 87.5%, according to Carter. “The areas closest to Fort Carson while experiencing the highest vacancy averages (currently) stand to benefit the most from these incoming troops,” Carter reports.The newest properties in the city have lowered their rents, boosting the overall occupancy rates to more than 90%, according to the report. “These properties saw a $20 per month decrease in rents since March and (are) $60 a month lower than June of last year,” Carter’s report says. “Properties built in the 1970s and 1980s saw stable rents and occupancies last quarter.”

Overall, the 12.5% vacancy rate is down from the 13.4% in the first quarter, but is 10% higher than a year earlier, Carter notes. The average rent is $604 per unit, per month, which translates into 74 cents per sf.

“Colorado Springs’ second quarter average rent, with rent concessions included in the calculation, is slightly lower than the last quarter and is 4% below the average of one year ago,” states the report.

For communities constructed pre-1980, the average vacancy rate is 13%, down from 14% in the first quarter. The Rustic Hills area has the lowest vacancy rate at 10%, while the South Central, Security/Fountain and the West areas have highest vacancies at 17%, each. Still, this is an improvement for the Security/Fountain area, which had a 20% vacancy rate in the first quarter.