Colorado subsidized apartments 6.7% vacant

Vacancies in subsidized, deed-restricted apartment units in Colorado in the third quarter rose to 6.7 percent from 5.7 percent in the third quarter of 2008, shows a state report released today.

Although that is only a one percentage point increase, it is a 17.5% percentage change.

Meanwhile, market-rate units in the third quarter had a vacancy rate of 7.4 percent, according to the report by the  Colorado Department of Local Affairs’ Division of Housing. In the second quarter, the vacancy rate for subsidized units stood at 6.4 percent.

The areas with the lowest vacancies were Grand Junction and the Boulder/Broomfield areas which reported vacancy rates of 1.0 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively, according to the report on subsidized units. The areas with the highest vacancy rates were Colorado Springs and Jefferson County which reported vacancy rates of 8.9 percent and 11.0 percent respectively.

The greatest differences between market-rate vacancy rates and vacancies in subsidized units were found in Grand Junction and Pueblo.

In Grand Junction, market-rate vacancies reached 7.5 percent, while subsidized units reported vacancies of 1 percent. In Pueblo, subsidized vacancies fell to 4 percent while market rate vacancies climbed to 12 percent.

“We generally expect subsidized units to have lower vacancy rates than market units, and that seems to be the case in general, but vacancies are much lower if we look at units available to the lowest income levels,” said Gordon Von Stroh, professor of business at the University of Denver, and the report’s author. “If we look more deeply into the numbers, we find that units available to a single-parent family making 50 percent of the area median income are really quite rare.”

The report measures units that have been rent-restricted due to government subsidies. Units may be owned by private firms, non-profit agencies, housing authorities, and local governments.

The Colorado Division of Housing monitors vacancies in subsidized and rent-restricted units on a quarterly basis. The subsidized unit report is available at this link.

The market rate report is available at this link.

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