Apartment vacancy hits 9-year low in Maryland

A sharp rise in demand for rental housing has driven Maryland apartment vacancy down to a nine-year low of 8.6 percent as young people continue to shun homeownership.

That's according to a state report on housing affordability released Friday, which found Millennials make up the largest share of renters. People between the ages of 25 and 34 made up 27.3 percent of all renter households in 2012, having grown by 10.2 percent between 2006 and 2012.

People ages 35 to 44 were the second fastest-growing group of renters in Maryland, up 8.7 percent to make up 21.5 percent of all renters.

The report, released by the state Department of Housing and Community Development, warns that the plunging vacancy rate is driving up the cost of rental housing. Rental housing costs rose by 3.4 percent over five years, and in In 2012 renters devoted an average of 32.9 percent of their income toward housing.

Families who owned homes were paying just 22.1 percent of their income toward housing, and those costs rose by less than 1 percent over the same period.

As a result, DHCD said in the report that it is focused on expanding rental housing as "part of Maryland's balanced approach to housing policy.

"Housing officials recognize homeownership may not be for everyone," the report said.

The report went on to say that DHCD "has tripled the production of affordable housing units in Maryland," having appropriated $62.2 million to subsidize rental housing production since 2012. There are 80 affordable rental projects either under construction or in the underwriting stage.

"This is an unprecedented number – more than we have had in play at any time in DHCD history," acting DHCD Secretary Clarence Snuggs said in a statement. "Just as importantly, those projects will allow us to leverage many times that amount from federal and private sources, so that we will put nearly a billion dollars into the state's economy."

Source: Baltimore Business Journal