Invasion of the Reluctant Renters

...From San Antonio to St. Louis to Atlanta, the economies of these cities have chugged along in recent years, missing out on the booms and busts on the East and West Coasts. Yet there has long been a glut of empty apartments in these areas..."It's been a double-edged sword," said Mark Fogelman, president of Fogelman Management Group, which owns more than 5,500 apartments in the Memphis...Before Hurricane Katrina hit, Houston and Dallas had the two highest vacancy rates in the country, according to Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Brokerage Company, in Encino, Calif. More than 10 percent of apartments were empty in both cities. Memphis and Atlanta were not far behind...Nationally, the average vacancy rate is 6.5 percent. Memphis, Dallas and Houston were among the few big metropolitan areas in the country where rents were continuing to fall in the first half of 2005, according to Global Real Analytics, a San Francisco research company that publishes the National Real Estate Index. Landlords were often forced to offer a month or two of free rent during the first year of a lease. Office space was also sitting empty. Before the storm, nearly one in four square feet of office space in Dallas was vacant, according to Marcus & Millichap. By ERIC DASH and DAVID LEONHARDT Published: September 16, 2005 NYTimes.com