If it seems like it鈥檚 becoming more affordable to live in the Denver area, it may be because you glimpsed recent headlines about apartment rents, like this one: 鈥淩ental housing in Metro Denver is cheaper today than it was in 2022.鈥�
Rents are down, according to the from Apartment Association Metro Denver (credited with the aforementioned headline). In the first three months of this year, average monthly rents in the Denver metro fell $56 from a year ago to $1,819. That鈥檚 also lower than where they were in 2022, at $1,870 a month.
The main reason is that 20,000 new apartments flooded the Denver market last year, said Cary Bruteig, a researcher with Apartment Insights who worked on the report for the association.
鈥淭hat is a huge number 鈥� a 5% increase in a single year,鈥� Bruteig said. 鈥淲hat that鈥檚 done is vacancies have moved up from 5.8% a year ago to 7% today. 鈥� And what happens when vacancy rates get over six is apartment communities start becoming much less aggressive in raising rents. In fact, they will often start flattening rents and offering concessions.鈥�
On average, the region has added 5,000 to 7,000 new units a year. In the past decade, new construction has added more than 10,000 units a year to meet the need for more housing. And even though 2024 saw double the number of new units than the past decade, renters did move into most of them, leaving about 6,000 units still available.
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