The apartment market in Denver continued its ascent up the performance slope in November 2021. Operators in the Mile High City pushed effective asking rents up 15.5% year-over-year. That rate came in significantly above the 10-year average, which was closer to 5%. Rents in Denver now sit at $1,762 per month. Helping sustain rent growth, occupancy also edged up under strong demand. In November, occupancy in Denver landed at 96.9%, up 200 basis points year-over-year. That was only the second time in the past decade that occupancy in Denver accelerated to this level, previously hitting 96.9% in September 2021. In tandem with solid rent growth and occupancy, investor appetite in the Denver market has proven consistent over the last ten years. During that time, the apartment base expanded 29%, marking Denver as a U.S. supply leader. This trend continued in the past year as nearly 7,300 units delivered, growing the local inventory base 2.4%. An avalanche of job additions launched the Mile High City into economic recovery mode starting in April 2021. Since that time, the market has added more than 650,000 positions in seven consecutive months of job gains. While job additions have slowed over the last few months, some 78,600 jobs were added in the year-ending October 2021, according to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
