A recent boost took apartment occupancy in Riverside to a two-decade high in August. When much of the nation saw occupancy ease in April and May, Riverside held steady and has logged improvement in the past three months. Occupancy in Riverside reached 97.6% in August. This was the market’s tightest reading since 2002 and tied with Virginia Beach as the best performance nationwide, among the nation’s 50 largest apartment markets. In August, specifically, occupancy tightened 80 basis points (bps), the second-biggest jump among the nation’s 50 largest markets, following the 90-bps jump in Raleigh. In comparison, the national average increased by just 30 bps during the month. Riverside recorded the largest year-over-year occupancy improvement among the top 50 markets, with an increase of 90 bps. Riverside has also been a leader for effective asking rent growth. In August, the market recorded a 1.4% month-over-month rent increase, the second largest after Las Vegas, and led the top 50 markets with an annual rent hike of 4.4%.
