Charleston Regional Development Alliance

Berkeley, Charleston & Dorchester Counties

Printed from www.crda.org

Charleston among the nation’s most "renter friendly" communities

Sep. 1, 2005
PR Newswire
AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- It's the age-old dilemma for young
families, those just starting out and even empty nesters: buy a home or rent?
Thanks to declining interest rates and a hot housing market, even die-hard
renters have been tempted to buy. But with mortgage interest rates rising,
many would-be homebuyers sense that buying a home right now may not be their
best decision. However, one question remains: where does renting make the
most sense?

Results of a new study from ApartmentRatings.com indicate that people
interested in renting will find some of the most renter-friendly communities
in the nation's fastest growing and mid-sized cities, such as Corpus Christi,
Grand Rapids, Raleigh, Portland (Oregon) and Salt Lake City. This is good
news for anyone waiting for the housing market to cool off or looking to enjoy
the benefits of an apartment lifestyle.

According to Jeremy Bencken, founder and president of
ApartmentRatings.com, renting may be logical, particularly for people who do
not plan to stay for a long time in a community or can't afford to buy in a
highly-desirable neighborhood. Additionally, renting an apartment often fits
busy lifestyles, as most communities cover all maintenance, and many offer
amenities designed to make a renter's life less complicated.

ApartmentRatings.com is an independent forum for renters to share the
unvarnished truth about their apartments. More than eight million renters use
the site, which has more than 280,000 unique reviews and covers about
50,000 properties across the United States. Using satisfaction information
from thousands of renters, combined with information from the U.S. Census
Bureau about apartment vacancy rates and affordability, the
ApartmentRatings.com study analyzed and created a renter's livability and
satisfaction index for 95 U.S. cities and ranked them against each other.

"These great communities offer an abundance of opportunities for families
and individuals as well as high levels of satisfaction among apartment
renters," said Bencken. "For many, having a home doesn't necessarily mean
owning a house. It's great to know that there are extremely livable
communities out there that are especially favorable for renters."

Not surprisingly, some larger cities such as New York, San Francisco and
Boston -- areas often plagued by high rents and high occupancy -- ranked near
the bottom of the list. Bencken said that one of the reasons that the large
metros didn't fare as well as their mid-size counterparts is that these
housing markets are often stable and tight, resulting in more competition
among renters for prime properties. In mid-sized cities, where the supply of
housing has grown faster than the population, landlords have to work overtime
to attract and retain the best renters.

The list:
1 Raleigh, NC
2 Ann Arbor, MI
3 Fort Wayne, IN
4 Grand Rapids, MI
5 Kalamazoo, MI
6 Athens, GA
7 Lansing, MI
8 Sarasota, FL
9 CHARLESTON, SC
10 Salt Lake City, UT
11 Killeen, TX
12 College Station, TX
13 Greensboro, NC
14 Indianapolis, IN
15 Corpus Christi, TX
16 Oklahoma City, OK
17 Omaha, NE
18 Kansas City, MO
19 Davis, CA
20 Knoxville, TN
21 Portland, OR
22 Atlanta, GA
23 Greenville, SC
24 Cleveland, OH
25 Chicago, IL

For the full list of 95 cities, scores and rankings by satisfaction,
affordability and vacancy, see:
http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/BestCities2005.html 		related information