A new report shows rents in the Reno-Sparks area are the highest they've been in a decade.
Data from a northern Nevada real estate consulting firm called Johnson, Perkins and Griffin shows the average rent now is up to $990 a month (that includes all apartment sizes).
Mike Higdon, a reporter at the Reno Gazette-Journal, broke down some of the data in a recent feature.
“That is harsh on people because it has essentially risen 11 percent, just from the end of December [2015] to April this year, and that’s a really steep rise,” he says.
He says low supply is the primary culprit.
“Reno's rent situation is driven by, straight up, Economics 101: supply and demand," says Higdon. "There's the lowest supply at 2 percent, meaning that only 2 percent of the inventory in the city is actually open for rent, and that's lower than it's ever been either.
"For reference, during the Recession, in 2008, the vacancy was 10 percent, almost 11 percent, because people were leaving the area and they weren't renting or buying new places."
There are more than 7,000 new apartment units planned or in the works over the next two years, but Higdon says this will unlikely have an affect on prices.