CoStar writes that multifamily properties in the Lehigh Valley have been posting strong year-over-year rent growth, such as the Spring View Apartments in Allentown, Pennsylvania. (image courtesy CoStar)

The strength of the Lehigh Valley’s multi-family housing and apartment market has caught the attention of CoStar, the leading provider of commercial real estate information, analytics, and online marketplaces.

CoStar Market Analyst Ben Atwood recently published a story about the Lehigh Valley, drawing attention to the fact that year-over-year rent growth in the Lehigh Valley is 10.5%, the highest level ever recorded in the region, and that in some parts of the Lehigh Valley rent growth is 15% to 20%.

“The data shows a near total absence of vacant units across the Lehigh Valley,” Atwood writes in the story, which was published on Sept. 2. “The market’s overall vacancy rate sits at 1.3%, which is also a record, and some of its suburbs are even tighter.”

Atwood wrote that there’s “also almost nothing underway to disrupt Lehigh’s rent-growth,” and cites several new and planned properties in the Lehigh Valley, including more than 300 units underway in northwestern Lehigh County and southeastern Northampton County.

“Looking at the data now, its hard to believe these projects will struggle at all,” he wrote. “Their success could prompt more growth and indeed, Lehigh looks primed for it.”

Below is an excerpt from the CoStar story, which was published on Sept. 2. The full story can be read here.

It is a good time to be an apartment owner in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley.

The market’s year-over-year rent growth sits at a lofty 10.5%, the strongest levels its ever recorded.

Every region within Lehigh is posting above-average gains in the third quarter, with the strongest seen in Central Lehigh County, where year-over-year growth is over 15%.

Suburbs such as Central Lehigh County show the strongest levels of gains, but Lehigh’s more-urban areas are also performing well. This is particularly true in downtown Allentown, where year-over-year growth is close to 10%.

That’s impressive for any urban core, but doubly so in Lehigh because these rents aren’t being compared to a 2020 rent downturn. That’s something many other cities experienced in 2020, as renters fled to the suburbs.

But downtown Allentown never saw this drop. Its rents kept growing through the coronavirus pandemic and its new arrivals filled within days of opening their doors.

Founded in 1987, CoStar conducts expansive, ongoing research to produce and maintain the largest and most comprehensive database of commercial real estate information.