By George Lipp, Mission Local
The following graphs plot a now familiar curve. Rents in the Mission are continuing the upward trend that began three years ago. The number of units for rent as listed on Craigslist.org have nudged up from the tightest of times in the fall of 2011. I said to myself, “It’s about time for supply to take control and for the rate of rent increases to moderate.” So far, that hasn’t happened. I decided to check around a bit.
I looked for an example, and found Vara, a nice apartment complex at 1600 15th street, a 202-unit building with 40 below-market-rate units. The apartments are being occupied now. Two hundred new units surely should have changed the supply/demand calculus — especially when the market-rate units begin at $2,675 for a studio and $4,800 for a three-bedroom. The apartments are expensive, have clever floor plans and are filled with amenities. All that said, 200 apartments is a lot of space to rent. To my amazement I found that, as of yesterday, all of the three-bedrooms and studio apartments were “unavailable” and on “availability alert.” In fact, only 14 market-rate units remain unrented. The below-market unit lottery list had been capped at 500. So Vara is, for all practical purposes, rented and the paint is barely dry. Meanwhile, the overall availability numbers in the Mission seem to have experienced a slight uptick, that’s all.
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