Rental doors slowly closing on apartment hunters in Bay Area

Kelly Zito won't acknowledge how bad yesterday's article was, but still goes on to write in today's Chron about how apartment rentals are becoming more scarce and prices are rising.

How can you continue to preach doom and gloom, Kelly? The economy is humming along nicely, and now the rental market is turning back in landlord's favor... Please explain to me how (other than wanting to sell papers) that you can avoid acknowledging this?

"Amid a firming economy and brightening job picture, the average monthly asking rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the nine-county region was $1,169 in the fourth quarter of last year, up $14 from the previous quarter and up 3.2 percent over the same period last year, according to Novato's RealFacts, a rental research company."

"RealFacts' quarterly reports, which cover more than 1,200 buildings and 215,300 units in the nine-county region, are based on surveys of properties of 50 or more units. In San Francisco, much of the rental stock consists of smaller buildings of four or six units."

"Research by MetroRent, an online rental service that tracks smaller buildings San Francisco, showed a larger gain of 6 percent in rents for all types of apartments in the city between the fourth quarter of 2004 and 2005."

I'm not claiming that the home sales market in San Francisco is going to continue with 20%+ gains this year, but if you look at reality, 15% is still a pretty damn good bit of appreciation in what everyone is considering a 'down' market.

My point: quit reading bad media. Facts are facts, but don't ignore the common sense of the San Francisco market. Both buyers and sellers should do just fine in 2006.