The following is courtesy of North Shore Realty Advisors.

This year — 2011 — has been interesting to say the least in regards to the North Shore rental market.  

If you have not been following this market shift in rentals, it has been a strong landlord market for the past two years, and we do not see this changing for another 2+ years.

This rental cycle shift has many different components pushing it, and it seems a little different from the strong rental markets in the past. We do not foresee this environment changing until developers can start pushing more units onto the market with assisting in the demand. 

We know of four major developments coming up in early to mid-2012 of 100 to 150+ units for each project. Depending on the completion date, we see these properties having a strong lease up which will not affect the market enough to change the rents. 

We still feel there will be a shortage of inventory for 2012 that will be similar to 2011.

Just for an example in regards to the downtown Salem Market — the locals are now competing against the professionals who work in Boston renting two beds for $2500 to $3500 and can find the same quality if not better for $1700 to $2500 in Salem. They will live close enough to the train so that it only takes them 26 minutes to North Station. Since January of this year, we have seen three rental increases that average 4 percent to 8 percent, which means we are renting one bedroom apartments that were $1050 in January and in July/August they are renting for $1350 to even $1400 without an issue.

Another example for you: We receive weekly and even daily updates from all types of landlords regarding their availability. Today is Aug. 8, and a well known apartment complex in downtown Salem is 100% leased which has 260+ apartments. Renters do not have the luxury anymore of making bids on apartments, because by the time you start negotiating, chances are there is already an application and check coming in.

There are deals out there but they are few and far between. You should be prepared to act with a check book in hand when you find a good deal and realize one when you see it. We always advise our clients if the unit has 75 percent of what you’re looking for, chances are it’s the perfect unit for you.

Our next post will be tips and tricks on how to find the deals. Thank you for reading our first blog post!

NSRA, LLC

NSRA Marketing Department