Page 26 - Flathead Beacon // 6.11.14

26 | JUNE 11, 2014 FLATHEADBEACON.COM

BUSINESS

The Booming Rental Market

Rental companies having trouble keeping inventory in stock as demand for properties grows

BSy MOLLY PRIDDY of the Beacon

ummer is the season of move-
ment in the Flathead, when the
valley shakes of the cold and
wet of winter and spring and
shifts forward to the relative consisten-
cy of warm weather and blue skies.
It’s not just hikers and anglers who
take advantage; summer is also the easi-

est time to move a household, and while
the real estate market is still inding its
legs after the recession, the rental mar-
ket is booming.
“We’re very busy; anything that we
have doesn’t last very long,” Debra Hill,
a licensed property manager at CoRen-

tal Property Management in Kalispell,
said. “They’re lying out the door, and
we have quite a few applicants for every
property.”
CoRental manages more than 400
properties in the valley, Hill said, and as
of last week all but eight were full. And
those eight properties already had mul-

tiple interested parties, she said.
“It’s almost a waiting list,” Hill said.
“People have applied, are approved and
waiting.”
Matt Bubar, owner and operator at
Integrity Property Management, re-
ported a similar level of interest in the
rentals his company operates.

“We can’t keep an inventory of plac-
es,” he said. “I wish I had 300 more plac-
es to rent out.”
A sign in the yard of a property in Whiteish. BEACON FILE PHOTO
Not only are the rentals illing up
quickly, but they’re also illing up with
people signing 12-month leases, show- foreclosure and bank-owned sales are to higher rent prices, and likely more in irearm manufacturing, he said, and
ing signs of stability for these rentals.
down – coupled with a strengthening apartment construction projects.
he’s also noticed plenty of retired mili-

“Everybody’s coming here for the employment rate leads to the current “There’s eventually going to be some tary personnel looking for a place to rent
summer and everybody is signing year rental market.
balancing out, but right now the rental as well.
leases,” Bubar said. “Everyone is coming “The rental market seems to be real market is certainly hot,” he said.
As with any type of commerce, rent-
here to work.”
hot right now; there’s hardly any vacan- At CoRental, Hill said she couldn’t als follow the law of supply and demand,
Real estate activity in the Flathead cies at all,” he said.
pinpoint one type of rental that seemed and when the demand is high, prices will
continues to improve from the reces- In the past decade or so, there has the most popular – all of the proper- likely relect the lack of supply, Hill said.
sion, and at the beginning of the year, typically been a rental vacancy rate of 4 ties, of all sizes, are in demand. Families “This is unprecedented, and that
the real estate market was showing to 5 percent, he said. Currently, Kelley are renting multi-bedroom houses, and creates a shortage, and then the rents re-

plenty of promise that it would continue would put the vacancy rate at less than 2 single, young people are after smaller lect that,” she said.
to pick up steam.
percent, which he predicted would lead
places.
Hill said her company rolls with the
In April, the median price of resi- While summer is typically the busy real estate market, noting that CoRental
dential sales in Flathead County was season for rental companies, Hill said, has lost many of its properties to sales,
$218,460, a nearly 13 percent increase “WE CAN’T KEEP
this level of activity has been consistent and that the owner places it on the mar-
from the same time in 2013, when the all year.
ket and it is snapped up within weeks.
median home price was $194,000, ac- AN INVENTORY OF “It hasn’t slowed down, it’s been like She’s also seeing renters move out to

cording to Jim Kelley at Kelley Apprais- PLACES. I WISH I HAD this all winter even,” she said.
buy homes, which opens up rental space
al.
Some potential renters have called for new clients, completing the real es-
The median residential sale price 300 MORE PLACES TO and tried to secure a place, sight unseen, tate cycle.
dropped to $214,000 in May, and Kelley before moving here, she said.
And while it may be frustrating for
reported that the number of residential Bubar said Integrity Property Man- rental companies to have to turn away
sales were even with 2013 through the RENT OUT.”
agement’s rentals have been popular potential clients, staying busy is a prob-
irst quarter, but dropped by 26 percent across the board as well, from four-bed- lem they don’t mind having.
in April, and another 7 percent in May.
Matt Bubar
room houses to two-bedroom apart- “It’s here today and gone tomorrow,”

Kelley believes the market is stabi- ments. There have been a signiicant Bubar said.
lizing, and the lack of cheap housing –
number of people moving here to work
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