Apartment livin' is easy, sort of

Gas, food and utilities have all gone up this year but not rent, according to some of the banners outside many apartment complexes in this city. At this apartment on Arrow, gas is free. Drive a little farther east and rent is free. Go west and one complex brags that a refrigerator, washer and dryer are included. I wonder if these flashy offers work. Do people who go apartment hunting really think, "A free tank of gas would be nice right about now. Let's move here"?

It seems a lot of apartment complexes are advertising these incentives, an indication that the rental market is softening but many Rancho renters tell me their rent is going up.

I brought this up with Cal Poly professor Mike Reibel, who specializes in demographics, and he told me the rental market should be tight because the prospective buyers who can't get loans and those who are watching their homes go through foreclosure -- the ones who should've been renting in the first place --  are back in the rental market. Rancho vacancies might be a localized thing, he said, since this city got built up so much faster than other parts of the region.

It just seems like nobody is happy. Renters are struggling to pay the rent and landlords are struggling to fill the units. The question mark hanging over this region's economy just keeps getting bigger. In the mean time, I'm holding out for an apartment that has free rent, gas, refrigerator, washer and dryer.