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(Mail Tribune / Jim Craven) Rental squeeze By john darling for the Mail Tribune Higher rents and more renters are putting a squeeze on working-class families, say those who struggle to find affordable housing. "Rental market? What rental market? There's certainly no market for those with lower income," says Carrie Ellis, a 33-year-old single mother who, after much searching and disappointment, finally landed a two-bedroom apartment in Central Point for a reasonable $535 (plus last month's rent and $530 cleaning deposit). "It's about all I could find," she says. "I need a three-bedroom, because my kids are opposite sex and need their own bedroom. But for three bedrooms, there was nothing under $1,100. They did a credit check and wanted two years of good rental history." Ellis says potential landlords wanted to know immediately whether she was single and had children. "I felt as soon as the kids were mentioned, they treated you like you were nothing," she says. "They said they didn't seem to have anything right now. It's not quite discrimination, but it was close." A shift in the housing market is fueling the demand for rentals, landlords and others say. The home buyer's market may have flattened, but prices have not dropped significantly. The high prices and rising interest rates mean many potential home buyers are being forced into rentals. "Vacancies have gone down, rents are rising and more people are renting. The demand is up," says Craig Horton, landlord of 22 houses and 217 apartments locally. A poll by the Southern Oregon Rental Owners Association shows a vacancy rate of 1.9 percent — so low that it's put an end to incentives seen in past years, such as discounted rent for the first month or one month free with a year's lease, says Dave Wright of Commercial Property Management in Medford. The vacancy rate in past years has hovered between 3 and 5 percent, he says. In the past few months, Wright has seen rents escalate on properties he manages by about 5 percent, depending on location. This is the first significant uptick in the rental market in five years, he says, adding that he doesn't think it's priced anyone out of the Rogue Valley yet. Cara Carter, director of tenant services for the Housing Authority of Jackson County, would disagree. "We've seen rents for single-family units going up over the last year. People who've been looking for a single-family home have had to turn to duplexes or apartments — and there aren't many out there," says Carter. Statistics kept by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development show two-bedroom units in Jackson County going from an average $679 last year to $703 this year. That's a $24 jump where the usual increase is $10 a year, she says. That increase has led the Housing Authority to increase its monthly payment standard (for subsidized housing vouchers) from $510 last year to $555. "It's definitely put a stress on the working family in our community," says Carter. "Three or four years ago, a lot of these people would have been able to buy a house. Now it's much more difficult." The swing to a "landlord's market" has prompted working poor people to migrate to the Willamette Valley, where homes are cheaper and wages higher, she says — and to focus on the South, where homes can be found at prices not seen in the Rogue Valley for a generation. SOROA President Randy Unger says rental demand is normally up in summer — and the association trains members to run clean rentals, in a professional way, so as to minimize vacancies. But he concedes most of the tightening of the rental market goes straight back to doubling of housing prices here since the start of the century. "Typical is one of my renters, who thought he was ready to go out and buy a house," says Herb Neeland, who has rentals in Grants Pass and Medford. "But he found the down payment and interest would be considerably more than rent, so he decided to stay where he is, in a duplex." Though it's a booming market for landlords, Neeland says he chooses not to boost rents so he can hold on to his good renters, treat people fairly and get a good return on his investment. The downside of raising rents is having to spend thousands of dollars for new paint, new carpet and advertising, something most landlords would prefer to avoid — provided they have good tenants, says Robert Claudson of Myron Corcoran Properties in Medford. John Darling is a freelance writer living in Ashland. E-mail him at [email protected]. Advertisement s Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2006 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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