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Rents flatten after pandemic-induced rise, rental website finds

A chart showing Salem’s rental market compared to other cities. (Courtesy/Apartment List)

Renting in Salem got a little more expensive thanks to the pandemic.

That’s a recent finding from Apartment List, an online rental platform that tracks trends in local rental markets.

According to Apartment List, rents are up in Salem by 1.7% since the beginning of the pandemic in March. Currently, the median rent in Salem for a one-bedroom apartment is $874 and $1,138 for a two-bedroom, according to Apartment List.

Rob Warnock, research associate at Apartment List, said that his company uses U.S. Census numbers as well as data it collects on what renters are paying to produce a snapshot of local rental markets.

He said that smaller cities like Salem fit into a bigger picture of how rental markets across the country have responded to the pandemic. Apartment List found that nationally rents are down 1.4% from last year. Cities with a high cost of living, including San Francisco and New York have seen noticeable drops in rent, Apartment List found.

Warnock said that earlier in the pandemic people were moving less, which meant less demand on the apartment market and cheaper rents. People are now moving again but to smaller cities, such as Colorado Springs or Boise that have less expensive rental markets, said Warnock.

“I think a big part of it is that jobs and cities were linked in a way that they weren’t this year,” he said.

With more people working remotely because of the pandemic, they are no longer committed to moving to expensive cities with large industry hubs, such as Portland or Seattle, he said.

While Salem rents they have increased by 2.7% since last year they were flat in October, Apartment List found.

Violet Wilson, the newsletter editor and helpline manager for the Salem Rental Housing Association, said that the pandemic has been tough on renters and landlords.

Gov. Kate Brown has extended the state moratorium on evictions of tenants who can’t pay rent because of the pandemic until the end of the year. She said that while local landlords are worried about paying their mortgages, they are still trying to work with distressed tenants by not raising rent and even giving them breaks on the money they owe.

She also pointed out that last year the Legislature passed a law capping the amount of money a landlord can increase rent. Currently, landlords can’t increase rent by more than 9.9%.

Wilson said that some landlords have increased rent on some properties to balance out tenants not paying on others.

“We still have to have money coming in,” she said.

Kathleen Ashley, a landlord who owns local property management company Making Homes Happen Inc., said that most rental properties that have not high turnover are below market. She said many landlords only do rent increases when tenants leave. She said that over the last several years, she’s seen people move to Salem that has impacted rents. Ultimately, she said the supply of housing needs to increase to lower rents.

But she added, “I think rents have plateaued.”

State economist Josh Lehner wrote in a blog post late last month that there is evidence the pandemic has created “Zoom Towns,” where highly paid workers can perform their duties remotely. But he wrote that data sources that population estimates and other indicators of demographic changes (such as DMV appointments) are not currently available.

He said in an email that a 1.7% rent increase in Salem isn’t “evidence of anything.” He added that there isn’t enough data currently available that shows where people are moving to. 

‘If work from home really becomes a bigger deal on a permanent basis it would make sense we would see some shifts,” he said. “It’s just not readily apparent today that that is happening, or at least not yet.”

 Contact reporter Jake Thomas at 503-575-1251 or [email protected] or @jakethomas2009.

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