If you’re looking to rent an apartment anywhere from Boulder to Colorado Springs and find a great price difficult to find, you’re not the only one.

As a background, the Denver market needs to add about 4,500 units each year just to keep up with normal growth.

The rental market is in high demand because

• With job uncertainty, many aren’t ready to purchase a home if they may lose their job or get their next job too far from this home.
• New renters include some of the 35k high school graduates each year
• In the past year and a half, 130k people moved to our state without a job lined up but will nonetheless need a place to live.

John Rebchook, the author of InsideRealEstateNews.com has recently reported vacancy rates in several articles.  With only a limited supply with increased demand, higher rents are seen across the state. Here’s a culmination by area:

Boulder:

As previously reported by InsideRealEstateNews, the overall vacancy rate for rental homes in the Denver area is a record-low 1.4 percent. In the Broomfield/Boulder corridor, the vacancy rate is zero. Median rents in an article dated May 24th were:  Boulder/Broomfield, $1535

Denver Metro:

During the second quarter of 2011, the median rent in metro Denver rose to $863.37, increasing 2.5 percent from 2010’s second-quarter median rent of $842.70. Full article

Colorado Springs:

Rebchook wrote, ‘The average rent in the Colorado Springs metro area hit a new high during the second quarter of 2011, climbing 5.5 percent, year over year, to $759, according to a report released today by the Colorado Division of Housing and the Apartment Association of Southern Colorado.’  Article

Are you ready to get out of the renting game? 8z Real Estate has brokers across Colorado. Start browsing Denver, Boulder and Colorado Springs real estate online.

You may have heard the news, but if you haven’t Forbes magazine recently ranked Denver amongst the best places for young adults to live.

They looked at the 100 largest metro areas and ranked their list based on

• projected job growth rates for 2010 to 2012 (data from Moody’s Economy.com)
• cost of living data (data from Moody’s Economy.com)
• median salaries for 24-34y.o. employed college grads (data from Payscale.com)
• unemployment rates
• Census Bureau data on the number of small businesses and large businesses per capita
• percentage of college graduates in the local population

Denver was ranked #7 because ‘The Mile High City boasts a significant college-educated population, a note-worthy number of small businesses and a healthy job growth rate that’s bolstered by the presence of companies like Lockheed Martin and IBM’ (Forbes, The 15 Best Cities For Young Adults).

We think that Denver will always remain popular amongst the younger residents as well as those young at heart because

• Denver is an active city with plenty of outdoor activities
• Denver has a vibrant culture with events and venues from sports to the arts
• So basically its not just a place to live but the lifestyle of living in Denver…

Trailing Denver, Colorado Springs was ranked #8 because ‘The Rocky Mountain metro area is home to an impressive number of defense contractors and universities, ensuring big business job opportunities and a notable number of college-educated residents” (Forbes, The 15 Best Cities For Young Adults).

But in case you were wondering, Des Moines Iowa took the title as the Best Place for Young Adults to live in the United States because: “The corn-belt city has the most big businesses per capita, a brag-worthy unemployment rate, low cost of living and a flourishing number of young professionals residing in the area” (Forbes, The 15 Best Cities For Young Adults).

But really?  Would you really want to leave the Denver walking neighborhoods of Wash Park and Highlands for the midwest?  Or would you really want to leave those foothills views from most Colorado Springs homes for the midwest?  I can speak for those of us at 8z Real Estate that I think we’re pretty happy in Colorado!

John Rebchook from InsideRealEstateNews.com recently sat down with Lane Hornung, the President and CEO of 8z Real Estate for a conversation.  This monthly feature on Inside Real Estate News is themed about the Millennials (also known as the Generation Y, Generation Next and Echo Boomers) and the generation’s uneasiness about home purchases from the several years of economic downturn.

The millennials are the largest demographic category in U.S. history with an estimated 80 million members in the US. They were born from 1982 to 2000. This generation, coming to age, at least in terms of real estate purchases are an interesting group to consider.

The millennials are important for the real estate industry. There are more than the Baby Boomers, but they have a very different view of real estate.

As Lane Hornung said, “The ones who have already bought, may already have been burned by the downturn. The ones who haven’t bought are skeptical. They’ve seen what has happened to their parents, friends or other family members.”

Rather than looking forward to buying a first home many prefer to continue renting. Yet this, like many things will likely pass.  ‘They will want home ownership. But they will be buying for different reasons.  They will be buying for community, not so much for an investment.

For the full interview and more insights visit John and Lane’s article on 8z Real Estate