The hardest place to find an empty apartment? It’s in the Midwest

Renting an apartment in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market is no easy task today. In fact, this market has the fewest percentage of vacant apartments in the country, according to a recent rental data from real estate analytics firm RealPage.

According to RealPage, 97.4 percent of the apartment unis in Minneapolis-St. Paul were rented in the second quarter of the year. This topped the company’s list. Following close behind was fellow Midwest market Milwaukee, were 97 percent of the apartment units were occupied.

Detroit ranked fourth on the list with 96.8 percent of apartments occupied, while Columbus ranked in eighth place with an apartment occupancy rate of 96.3 percent.

Across the nation, a near-record 95 percent of all apartment units were occupied in the second quarter, RealPage reported. Greg Willett, chief economist of RealPage, said that a strong jobs market is the main reason why more people are renting. He also said that not as many renters are choosing to buy homes as in the past. A growing number are renting by choice.

The big challenge for renters remains finding an apartment. RealPage reported that developers added 86,431 apartment units across the nation in the second quarter of the year. That’s a high number, but RealPage said that the demand for apartments called for a new stock of multifamily units closer to 175,645.

As vacancy rates have risen, so have rents, RealPage found. The analytics company reported that average rental rates rose 1.8 percent in the second quarter of the year when compared to the same quarter one year earlier. Monthly rents averaged $1,339 in the second quarter, according to RealPage.