Hot Apartment Markets
Austin ranks among the hottest rental markets, and we know what that means
Apartment supply is barely keeping up with demand in Austin, which Zillow just named one of the 10 hottest rental markets in the nation. A slew of new buildings going up, rising rents, and competition for those units all fuel the frenzied market, making Austin the No. 8 most competitive of them all.
To compile the list, the Zillow economics team looked at the share of rental apartments built in 2011 or after, the percent of new apartment units from the last year that rented within three months of being built, and the rent appreciation of apartments over the past year.
Apartments built after 2011 make up 3.6 percent of Austin's available pool of rentals, and although that doesn't sound like much, buildings built in the last year are responsible for 63 percent of all units rented in the last three months.
Not only are people clamoring to claim a newer apartment as their home sweet home, they're also willing to pay more for it. Over just this past year, says Zillow, apartment rent appreciation has gone up 3.7 percent.
Dallas is also experiencing a hot rental market, coming in just below Austin, at No. 9. The numbers between the two cities are pretty similar, and neither catches up with Columbus, Ohio.
The college town places first on Zillow's list, with new apartments accounting for 5 percent of the market; 77 percent of those units have been rented in the last three months. Just in the past year, rents have gone up 6 percent.