Published October 26, 2006
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Kristin Zimmerman went looking for a new apartment recently after someone broke into her unit in a converted Victorian house in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco.
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She found two-bedroom, two-bath dwelling on the edge of upscale Russian Hill, where the previous tenant had been paying $2,600 a month - more than the $1,959 she and her roommate were spending but still within their limit.
The landlord wanted $3,000 a month and wouldn't budge.
"The woman was just unrelenting," said Zimmerman, 26, a cancer researcher.
Apartment rents and demand are soaring nationwide as the economy produces good jobs and people who might have bought homes a year ago settle for apartments while they wait for housing prices to tumble.
The supply of rental housing tightened in the past year as many apartments were converted into condominiums in places like Florida and Southern California. Some of those units are now returning to rental markets at high prices as owners struggle to sell them.
In the quarter ended Sept. 30, the average advertised rent reached $978, up 3.9 percent over the year-ago period, according to an analysis of 75 markets by real estate research firm Reis Inc. in New York. Some of the biggest increases were seen in Florida and Southern California.
