Moving in September?  It may be time to start looking for apartments.  Apartments in Boston available for September 1st come off the market faster than you may think.

1. 9% of the total expected inventory has come on the market to date
2. 1% of the total inventory has already been rented
3. An additional 10-15% is expected to rent between February and March
4. The rest of the inventory will become available 60-120 days before the lease expires

Availability by Neighborhood

Another benefit to starting your search early is the price.  There is a 13% price difference between apartments leased in the winter versus those that rented in the summer.  In a rental market that is tighter and more expensive than ever, you could be saving yourself a fair amount of time and money.

For more rental statistics take a look at average rents in various Boston neighborhoods and availability by month between 2009-2011.

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In the case of apartment listings, a picture is not always worth a thousand words.  

I fully understand the appeal of seeing an image of an apartment before seeing it in person.  Theoretically, by looking at a few images you’d get an accurate sense of what the apartment looks like.  At least more accurate than any description could be.  This could not be farther from the truth.

Don’t Trust Every Image You See

To get a sense of just how deceiving some images can be, here are a few examples of false images or photo fakeouts of hotels and resorts from www.oyster.com.

Realtors and owners apply similar “fake out” techniques to the photos in their listings.  Sure, you won’t see the “sexy lady phenomenon” in apartment listings, but you’ll certainly see pools, rooms, closets etc. appearing much larger than in real life.  There are a couple of ways to achieve this, including photographing only parts of rooms to make them seem like they extend much further out than what’s in frame and applying the fishbowl effect (which I’ve seen done more than once on craigslist).  Another trick is to photograph only the good parts of the apartment–the beautiful hardwood floors, light streaming in from the window–and leave out the shot of the mold in the bathroom, or the non-existant kitchen.

Listings Without Pictures

Many owners don’t post pictures of their units.  There are many reasons for this.  Here are a few:

1. No digital camera or knowledge of how to upload or scan photos.
2. No time.
3. The current tenants have not yet moved out.
4. The apartment is undergoing renovations.

How To Find A Good Apartment Without Relying on Pictures

So, without pictures how can you determine if seeing the apartment is worth your time?  The answer is complicated.  Some owners put a lot of care and effort into their listings, some don’t have time, and some don’t have the tools or the language skills to describe their property properly.  Generally, the more caring the landlord, the more detailed the listing.  The truth is though, apartments in the Boston area come off the market so fast, owners don’t have to do much to get their properties rented.

Need some help sorting through the bad listings to get to the good?  At Rental Beast we check the validity of every listing, and while our listings may not always have images, we have accurate, verified information.

Photo curtesy of longlostcousin via flickr

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Here at Rental Beast, because of our vast database of apartments across the Boston area, we have a huge amount of information about the current rental market at our fingertips.  What do we want to do with that information?  Share it with you!  If you’re searching for an apartment in the Boston area, having information about renting in the city is incredibly valuable.

So what have we learned about the recent rental market?  Well, for one, there was a 7% increase in Rent from 2010 to 2011.

This year 60% of all rentals were leased between February and June.   There is a 13% price fluctuation between the early season (December/January) and the high season (July/August).  During the high season, the average length that an apartment stays on the market is seven days.

Will you be looking  for an apartment in Boston in 2012?   Make sure to get a head start on your search.  If you do find a place, don’t wait!  If you’re looking for an apartment during the high season, prepare to rent quickly.

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Q:  Why did you start Rental Beast Capital?

A:  I keep getting inquiries from different Boston apartment owners looking to sell and other property owners looking to buy.   I wanted to see if we could help make the connection.

Q:  Why might it be a good time to sell property?

A:  The scarcity of properties on the market has created a very favorable environment for sellers.  Also, low mortgage rates have called many serious buyers to action.  I think owners would be pleasantly surprised by what value their property may have in today’s market.  At a minimum, they will be able to get a candid assessment of their property’s value.

Q:  Is there any advice you can give to property owners looking to sell?

A:  Get your sale price right!  Using our network and resources, we are able to take a deep dive into the local market analysis, general market conditions, comps, demand for the specific property and come up with a price that will sell the property!

If you are interested in selling your property or to find out how much your property is worth, contact Rental Beast Capital at capital@rentalbeast.com

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Renting an apartment in a city is usually synonymous with a cramped home life. Tiny kitchens, undersized bedrooms, and the worst of all- small closets, are some of the many ‘perks’ of living in a city apartment.

I admit that I complain about the lack of space for my hundred-plus pairs of shoes, but realistically I know that many people live in much tighter quarters than I do. Gary Chang, a Chinese architect, designed his 344 square foot apartment to essentially be 24 different rooms. I thought that buying a shoe rack made my apartment more spacially efficient, until I came across his video…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg9qnWg9kak

What do you guys think about Gary’s 24 “room” apartment? What are some creative ways that you have maximized the space in your apartments?!

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Rental Beast gets some more press about our upcoming expansion.

“Boston, Mass.-based RentalBeast moving its rental service site into Manhattan, Philadelphia, DC, and eventually major cities across the country; wants to ‘become MLS of the rental industry.’”

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Dear Readers,

I apologize for not adding to the blog in so long but we are working tirelessly on a few exciting things:

1. We hope to launch our new website by the end of this month (fingers crossed).
   The result of which will revolutionize the way people find apartments for rent on the internet by creating a very easy and simple user experience.
   Stay tuned.
2. We have also accelerated our national expansion efforts; hoping that we will be helping renters find great apartments, save time, and money throughout the U.S.
3. There are some exciting partnerships in the works that would add even more value to both our users and to the listing owners/managers.

Back to the rental market:

There are new or at least a much larger group of entrants to the rental market, namely:

• Home owners whose property got foreclosed.
• Tenants in foreclosed multi-family buildings that are getting evicted by the banks.
• First time home buyers or just buyers in general that now can’t get a mortgage because of the much stricter guidelines and full doc’ loans.
• Buyers that are scared about prices going down even lower who are still waiting things out.
• You have more students that require more apartments due to the new law that limits the amount of students in each apartment to 4.

As a result, we are noticing an upwards trend for prices of rentals this Spring/Summer season.

IG

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Anyone following the news recently knows that the economy has taken the front seat in the headlines. Gas prices, home sales, mortgages, The sub-prime sector, interest rates, the economic stimulus package, the stock market and most importantly Britney Spears’ mental health and what REALLY happened to Heath Ledger.

How does it all affect the rental market?

Well, my prediction is that the rental market is going to heat up gradually, not explode immediately. But overall, locally and beyond, rents will go up and inventory will go down.

Usually when the sales market struggles people tend to rent and when more people rent it gives the rental market a boost.

Based solely on that fairly sensible theory, the rental market is bound to explode since the sales market is free-falling to one of the worst slumps in its history.

The reason I think the rental effect will be more gradual is that a lot of real estate investors, large and small, amateur and professional, went into what’s known as “The Flip Craze” (The purchase of property for the purpose of quickly renovating/building and selling for a profit. In many cases it involved converting the legal status of units into condos) That craze overwhelmed the market with a huge inventory of condos.

A lot of those developers are now faced with some difficult decisions:

1. Try and sell anyway for their desired price and wait an indefinite amount of time for that to maybe happen
2. Sell and take a loss, just to try and minimize the damage (short sale)
3. Foreclose
4. Rent the unit. Which in many cases allows them to hold on to the property until the market bounces back.

I see a lot of number 4’s out there.

That said, foreclosure rates are close to or past all-time highs in certain areas, many of those properties are multi-family homes or multi-unit buildings. Mortgage companies and banks that foreclose on those properties usually try and sell them.

Because selling a vacant property is a much easier task, if the property that is foreclosed upon has tenants those tenants will be evicted, forcefully, like by cutting off heat, electricity and water. So many people find themselves in a surprise apartment-hunt situation which makes for some more competition than usual. The result is rents will go up and broker fees will be harder to avoid.

Although I can’t control rents going up I can say that smart renters will use GrandCentralApartments.com and will avoid Broker Fees ; )

IG

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Last month the Boston City Council voted unanimously to petition the Boston Zoning Commission to change zoning rules so that no more than four college-level students can occupy an apartment.

There has been some outrage over this from the SPOA (Small Property Owners Association). The only reasoning I was able to find as to why they are changing the zoning rule and almost blatantly discriminate students as a “Problem Tenant” is the need to reduce partying in certain residential areas were students live.

Overall I don’t think it will have much affect on the rental market as a whole but it will certainly cause a spike in lack of availability and lead to higher rents in the student-congested areas in and around the city.

After working with hundreds if not thousands of students to find them housing I can maybe remember a dozen cases were more then 4 people were sharing the same unit.

It’s also worth mentioning that there is always a very low inventory of 4+ bedroom units regardless of who is looking.

Apartments tend to be smaller in the city. Landlords have an easier time renting smaller apartments. At one time there were larger apartments, but property owners broke those larger units into many smaller ones because they could make more money.

Living on top, under and beside students at various periods of my life I find that you don’t have to live somewhere to participate in a party, so the argument of less people living there = less partying is, to me, irrelevant.

Overall I find the argument that led to the zoning change outrageous but I don’t think it will have much affect on the market.

IG

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Rather than talk about how painful parking in Boston, in particular, the neglected areas of South Boston during the snow season, I want to make a suggestion to city officials.

As we all know, in many neighborhoods in and around Boston, people who shovel their parking spot claim it with some sort of a marker.

Some of my favorites from this year:

1. an old TV – Really old
2. A mail box
3. Some twisted version of frosty the Snowman (This marker is for single-use only)

Although the rules of marking a spot require that the marker be removed 48 hours after a storm – the vast majority keep their marker until most of the snow melts and you can find a spot without having to trudge home from Castle Island.

This year I noticed two things that made the situation worse.

1. Snow removal was slow, late and insufficient with more snow and ice makes piled on top to add to the mayhem.
2. The city, without warning, decided to pay its workers to remove some markers at random.

Here is my suggestion:
Reinstate Street Cleaning Rules for one week, after a major snow event, to facilitate snow removal. And I mean removal by wheel loader and dump truck. Why are workers being paid to remove markers instead of snow!?

Preferential Treatment

Unless Boston passed some new “Preferred Traction” law for the Back Bay I don’t see a reason for South Boston’s street corners and crosswalks to be totally iced up two weeks after a storm and in the Back Bay you can pretty much eat off any curb you see because it’s so well cared for.

Thanks,

IG

Photos: John Tlumacki, David L. Ryan, Boston Globe

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