Omaha’s Rental Market Update
Published on: Wednesday, April 15th, 2015
At the moment we are enjoying a vacancy rate of 6.55% which is substantially lower than the market. To some degree this low number is because we’d recently taken some less desirable properties out of inventory which has allowed us to focus on other endeavors. Part of it can be attributed to some recent changes in our software that have made the process much easier for the prospective tenant to have us work around their schedule.
Trends we’ve seen in Omaha’s midtown market have shifted substantially over the course of that past few years, but in particular this year. The shift can be summed up in a word “Amenities.” The market is moving to a more large city inventory that a Denver, Atlanta or even New York would have offered several years ago. Omaha residents, especially the young professionals are itching for big city living, density is preferred and it’s becoming more and more clear that size (big anyway) no longer matters to Midtowners. Where historically size was prized and rewarded by renters the opposite is almost more true. The price per square foot is skyrocketing in parts of town if the units include amenities and vacancies are up for the units that offer the green space, high ceilings and larger footprints. It’s the opposite of West Omaha.
This all said the trend is limited to Midtown and Downtown, but if larger cities are an indicator of what is to come we can imagine this trend spreading over the next several years.
