MyNewPlace Blog

So this week Dr. Government approached the lifeless body of the economy, armed with a fiscal defibrillator; in one hand the Treasury Department's Geithner plan, in the other, an unprecedented emergency supplemental appropriations bill, commonly known as “the stimulus".

Unfortunately, it will be more than a few seconds until the fate of the economy is apparent to anyone.

From what we can tell from yesterday morning's Congressional grandstanding, last fall's Troubled Assets Relief Program, (TARP), which injected, as of February 9, 2009 $388 billion, has been deemed by those who authorized it as an utter failure; various House members took their turns scolding the heads of the 8 largest banks in the country for their misuse of taxpayer money. This verity of this last sentence is evidence enough of the dire economic straits in which we now find ourselves.

And now the convoluted Stimulus Plan, which President Obama hoped to have on his desk before President's Day, is poised to inject around $790 Billion into the flagging economy.

Though the final language of the conference report (bicameral compromise version) has yet to be released and it is still very unclear as to how the money will actually be spent, many are cautiously optimistic that the stimulus plan, be it a nuclear option or not, will remedy the current economic crises.

The most salient and widespread result of the past years credit crisis following the housing bubble is the sharp spike in unemployment rates around the country. The stimulus plan's main focus is to create jobs, with a combination of tax cuts and increased government expenditures.

Unemployment rates have already begun to hamper the apartment rental market; we recently reported that rents decreased for the first time in 5 years, and that vacancy rates have increased.

If job losses continue to increase, vacancy rates will continue to increase, even though the introduction of new rental supply is only 14 percent of the average number of new units from the previous ten years. We expect many renters to look for better deals, search for roommates and possibly even move back home during this time of uncertainty.

For renters out there, has the recent drop in rents spurred you to look around to see what deals there are? Just today we saw one Pasadena apartment offering $1000 cash back!

For the apartment marketing professionals and managers, what types of rental trends have you seen in your area? Are there more queries for multiple bedroom apartments? Are people looking for special deals?

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