If you are noticing a lot of for rent signs lately in your neighborhood, you are definitely not seeing things.

The apartment market was not long ago seen as a sweep spot as disenchanted homeowners flee, voluntarily or not, to rentals.

But now the apartment market appears to be headed downhill as well.

The national apartment vacancy rate has now risen to 7.5 percent. That is its highest level since 1987, research firm REIS Inc. finds.

We are now quickly closing in on the all-time high of 7.8 percent set in 1986.

The recession is mainly to blame, hitting hard at young people in their late teens and twenties who make up one of the larger segments of the rental market.

And things are likely to get worse – for landlords anyway – with 100,000 new units coming on across the country.  A fair number of those are likely condos that developers could not sell – it’s a trend well underway in the Boston area.

For renters, though, if you have a job and a little extra cash, this just might be your time.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 2:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.