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Las Vegas apartment rents rising, but so is vacancy rate

Updated December 21, 2018 - 9:52 pm

Las Vegas apartment rents are ending 2018 rising fast, but amid steeper prices and increased construction, vacancies are ticking higher.

The average effective rent for a Las Vegas-area apartment this quarter is $1,059, up 8.1 percent from a year earlier, according to preliminary figures released Friday by research firm Reis Inc.

The growth rate was second-fastest in the country behind Phoenix, at 8.4 percent.

Effective rents show what tenants pay. Asking rents were up 8.6 percent year-over-year in Las Vegas, fastest in the nation.

Reis listed 79 metro areas in the report.

Las Vegas’ apartment market has heated up in recent years with more development, mostly in the suburbs; lucrative investor purchases; shrunken vacancies; and fast-rising rents that are stretching affordability for some tenants.

Southern Nevada has a 4 percent vacancy rate, Reis reported, up from 3.2 percent during the same period last year.

Barbara Byrne Denham, a senior economist with Reis, attributed the rise to the ongoing surge in construction.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter.

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