WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) – You may have noticed that prices to rent an apartment or house in Watertown have gone up in recent years. You’ve also probably wondered why there’s such an increase. We take an in-depth look at the city’s rental housing market.
There are many factors that play into the rise in rental prices such as inflation, landlord expenses, and the cost to renovate rental units when tenants leave.
The area around Court Street in Watertown is in the middle of a revamp as downtown revitalization streetscape improvements continue.
But overlooking the street, there are now 20 new market-rate apartments renovated by Steve Bradley, who owns several buildings on the block.
“Some are one bedrooms like these. They are pretty big, most of them. We do have some smaller that are studios,” he said.
Bradley says in determining how much to charge, he averages about $1 per square foot. So an apartment that has 1,400 square feet is $1,550 per month.
“It works; it’s a good number to work with and we are including everything. We include all the utilities, all the water, we have internet, everything is part of the rent price,” he said.
Jefferson Lewis Board of Realtors Executive Officer Lance Evans says the median average for a rental unit in the city right now is $1,200. He says that number is up significantly from a few years ago.
Watertown’s close proximity to Fort Drum helps support higher prices as the government increases a soldier’s housing allowance. In 2022, it was an 11 percent increase, according to the Fort Drum housing website.
Evans explains some other factors.
“Some of it depends on what’s included. Some of it may depend on the landlord’s taxes, what costs they have which may be different than the costs that the next person has,” he said.
Evans says some landlords are trying to recuperate money lost during the Covid-19 pandemic, where some tenants, who had utilities included, stopped paying rent. That put some larger landlords out tens of thousands of dollars.
Michael Hall with North Star Real Estate owns and manages more than 140 Watertown-area rental units and says expenses are through the roof.
“As far as utility costs, National Grid bills, especially units that include utilities, I mean the National Grid bill went from being $100 to $200 so those costs have to be compensated for somehow,” he said.
Another problem during Covid was trashed apartments.
“It seems like, after every third or fourth tenant, you used to have a do a large scale turnover. Where now it seems like after every single tenant you are doing, you know, LVP flooring which is $2 a square foot. Well if you have a thousand-square-foot apartment, that is $2,000 just in flooring,” said Hall.
Those are the reasons why prices are higher now than before Covid.
What’s it doing to tenants? One woman, who works full-time, says she and her 4 kids were almost out on the street due to the increase in rental prices and couldn’t afford a space big enough for her family.
On Wednesday on 7 News This Evening at 6 p.m., we’ll have her story.
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