Comment on Metro Denver apartment market achieves a zen state in 2024

Apartment rents and vacancy rates in metro Denver stayed mostly flat as the market absorbed an unexpectedly large number of new units in the first quarter. Developers delivered 5,144 apartments in the first three months. And despite reports from the U.S. Census Bureau of slowing migration to Colorado, tenants absorbed 5,034 of those units, according to the 2024 First Quarter Vacancy & Rent Report for Metro Denver from the Apartment Association of Metro Denver. The Denver market has delivered 27,000 apartments in the past two years, outstripping the historical average of 10,000 deliveries over two years. Over the last four years, one of the most robust stretches on record, developers have delivered 2,900 units a quarter. Even by recent standards, the first quarter was robust. “It was a really good quarter,” said Cary Bruteig, founder of Apartment Insights and author of the report. The absorption of so many units in what typically isn’t a busy season for leasing had Bruteig complimenting landlords on their marketing efforts and questioning the accuracy of reports that fewer people are relocating to the region. Some of that new supply reflects conversions of old hotel rooms in Denver into studio apartments to house people experiencing homelessness.