John Rebchook is a former Rocky Mountain News reporter with more than 30 years of experience in writing and communications... Increasingly, people who have been renting homes in the Denver area are leaving to buy homes to and take advantage of the $8,000 tax-credit available to qualified first home buyers this year, experts told InsideRealEstateNews.com.
About 30 percent of the people who have been renting homes through Jericho Properties Realty in recent months, have left to buy their own homes and take advantage of the tax credit, said Robert Alldredge, owner of the residential real estate management company. He expects that trend to continue and accelerate. Susan Melton, owner of Assured Properties, which primarily handles rental homes in Jefferson County, as well as in Arapahoe and Douglas counties, also is noticing first-time buyers leaving rental homes take advantage of the tax credit, which is available for people who buy homes by Dec. 1.
Both Alldredge and Melton, who are active in the are active for the Denver board of the National Association of Residential Property Managers, made their comments regarding the tax credits, as University of Denver Daniels School of Business Professor Gordon Von Stroh released a first-quarter report on rental housing, which showed the overall vacancy rate, while still low at 3.6 percent in the first quarter, is up from 2.7 percent in the first quarter of 2008. Von Stroh authored the report on behalf the state’s division of housing. The vacancy rate fell from 4.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, but much of that apparently is for seasonal reasons.
The report tracks for rent-condos, single-family homes and other small properties across the Denver area.
Overall, the housing rental market appears to have stabilized, said Alldredge and Melton. The number of renters leaving homes to purchase, is not approaching the days of easy mortgage money, when 75 percent of the renters were leaving apartments to buy homes, Alldredge noted.
Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-6865.
