From off campus housing to starting a family to moving for a job, there are many reasons that people are looking to move and rent apartments. In fact, more people are renting apartments than ever before, particularly young people who are between the ages of fifteen and thirty four and make up more than forty percent of all renters scattered across the entirety of the United States. In total, there are currently more one hundred and ten million renters in the United States alone, just above twenty five percent of all people who are currently living in the United States. As many as two people move into their new apartments for every minute that passes, even, and someone signs a lease for a new apartment just about every minute and a half.
There are many reasons that people seek out an apartment instead of looking to buy a home. For one, young college kids who are looking for off campus housing are likely to look for an apartment. Off campus housing often becomes desirable after living in the dorms for a couple of years. Unlike many apartments where you can find off campus housing in, dorms are cramped. There is little privacy, especially when you share a room with at least one other person and a bathroom with your entire floor. There are also restrictions for many dorms in the United States that aren’t found in off campus housing, such as no alcohol allowed in the dorm buildings, even if the student has reached the age of twenty one or surpassed it. Seeking out off campus housing also simply allows a student to make the space more of their own, something that is much more limited if you live in a dorm. And when it comes to finding off campus housing, we have to remember that these are students that we are talking about here, students who do not have too much money to their name, more likely than not. Students are likely to benefit from renting an apartment as off campus housing because it is likely to be more affordable. In addition to this, leases only last a year, allowing a student to easily move to a new place for work after they finish school or even just to study abroad.
Aside from students who are looking for off campus housing, recent college graduates are among the most likely to rent an apartment instead of immediately looking to buy a home. For one, recent college graduates are usually not particularly settled in their lives. They have no (or very little) idea of where they will ultimately end up, and are usually not ready to put down roots and buy a home in any one location. Recent college graduates also don’t tend to have all that much money either, as they are likely looking for or working in an entry level job, positions that are not exactly known for their great pay and benefits. For students who have just left college, many will soon be looking to apply and start grad school as well, something that might necessitate another move and prevent students from seeking out permanent housing for a considerable period of time.
And though some of these students will get older and will eventually decide that they want to buy a house, many are content to live in various apartment buildings indefinitely. In fact, data backs this up, showing that among households headed by those at or below the age of thirty five, more than half, more than sixty percent even, were renters and planned on staying that way for the forseeable future. Renting is simply often the most cost effective option, even when these renters have children to consider and provide for (or especially then, depending on how you are looking at it). And when we look at the trends of residential real estate, we see that there are more renters now than there have been since way back in 1965.
From off campus housing options to student housing to a space for lease for the young professional, renting has become more popular than ever before and is likely to remain so in the years that are to come.
