by Nena Perry-Brown

Rendering of an apartment building planned in Crystal City. Click to enlarge.

Speculation has increased in recent weeks that the DC area is one of the likeliest contenders to nab Amazon's second headquarters (HQ2); however, the state of the region's apartment market is generally not cited as a draw.

Now, a new study by RealPage finds that the DC area has the third-best positioned apartment market to be able to accommodate the additional workforce an Amazon headquarters would bring.

According to RealPage the DC region has 30,453 vacant apartments and 18,958 apartments in the pipeline, along with an effective rent of $1,691/month. By these measures, if development continues apace, the pipeline should be able to both handle the initial influx of Amazon workers and accommodate their longer-term housing needs.

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The DC area's effective rent is the highest of the three metro areas highlighted, although the study cites that the rents in the DC area are extremely comparable to those in Seattle, home of the original Amazon campus (it is unclear whether the study is comparing Seattle's rents pre-construction of the campus or present-day).

Atlanta is identified as the best-positioned apartment market, although it has slightly fewer vacancies (29,648) and 5,700 fewer units in the pipeline. Dallas is the second best-positioned market with more vacancies (32,897) and more units in the pipeline (24,063) than tallied in the DC area. However, both of these metro areas are more affordable, with effective rents around $1,100 a month.

The study uses the Census metropolitan statistical area definition of the DC area, which includes counties as far-flung as Jefferson County, West Virginia.

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This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dc-area-rental-market-ideally-positioned-to-accommodate-amazon/13502