After declining nearly across the board last year, rent on apartments and houses of all sizes in Bend and Redmond has started to increase and the number of vacant units has started to decline, according to a recent survey.

The reason: the economy, which also affects nearly every other aspect of Central Oregon’s housing and real estate market.

A year ago, some apartment complexes had 25 percent of their units vacant, said Lawnae Hunter, president of the Central Oregon Rental Owners Association. Much of that excess supply has now been reduced.

Homeowners who lost their houses to foreclosures and short sales make up a portion of new renters on the market, and, Hunter said, some people wanting to downsize choose to rent rather than buy.

Generally, rents could increase about 5 percent this year, she said.

“They’re not going to skyrocket,” Hunter said. “Demand is not that high.”

The foreclosure process also takes some homes off the market for a period of time, decreasing the supply, at least temporarily, said Kevin Restine, property manager and general manager for Plus Property Management.

But the decline in housing values also has allowed some investors to buy foreclosed properties and turn them into rentals, said Restine and Hunter.

Eventually, those conversions bring more rental properties on the market, which will be good for the community because it could be several years before developers build any new apartment complexes or rental properties, they said.

“It’s really healthy,” Hunter said about rising rents, “although I am sympathetic to the people affected by it.”

Said Restine, “We’re seeing for the first time in a long time people able to purchase an investment property, put a tenant in it and have it pencil out.”

Breaking it down

Last year, average rents fell in almost every category of housing when compared with 2009, according to survey information contained in The Bulletin’s archives.

This year, figures from the Central Oregon Rental Owners Association’s 2011 first-quarter survey show rent increases in the majority of categories in apartments and homes, when compared with last year’s data from the newspaper archives.

The first-quarter survey, which was based on 175 responses, presented the data differently from previous years.

For the recent survey, the rental owners association broke out rents for large apartment complexes, those with 20 or more units, along with those with five to 19 units, duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes.

Some examples from the survey: Average monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in a complex with five or more units runs about $615 in Bend and $661 in Redmond. Average rent for two-bedroom houses in Bend and Redmond were listed at $867 and $736, respectively.

The amount of vacant units also varied in the survey, depending on the size of the apartment complexes and city.

Larger complexes in both cities had a combined vacancy rate of 5.44 percent. Smaller complexes, between five and 19 units in Bend and Redmond showed rates of 1.67 percent and 3.17 percent, respectively, according to the first-quarter survey.

For all apartments in all complexes, vacancy rates in Bend and Redmond were 5 percent and 5.48 percent, respectively, according to calculations by The Bulletin. Hunter said normal is about 6 percent.

Larger apartment complexes also tended to charge slightly lower rent, according to the survey. Their owners and managers probably keep them lower to attract tenants, Hunter said.

Also, the larger complexes frequently lack some amenities, such as garages, fireplaces and yards, found in the smaller ones, she said.