96% of Renters Planning To Move in 2009

Just got the newsletter from the great folks at MultifamilyPro, which cited Apartments.com (sorry about the roundabout citation!)

Anyway, it noted that 96% of renters planned on moving this year for new locations or better bargains.

(Not sure if the newsletter is posted online - If somebody knows the URL, feel free to post it.)

That sounds astonishing! Any idea on how that relates to previous year's?

I have a hard time believing that number, so I went to Apartments.com and checked out the press release. The data sample is suspect:

In January, Apartments.com conducted a national survey to more than 1,600 renters on their 2009 moving plans including whether or not they are choosing to move, why they are moving and if they expect to pay more, the same or less for rent.

It appears to me that the 1,600 renters sampled simply completed an online survey while they happened to be on the web site searching for a new place to live. That means the data is heavily skewed towards people highly likely to move in 2009.

I hope somebody from apartments.com is a member of the site and can provide more detail about the data sample. Until then, I must assume that the results of this survey are no more legitimate than any other poll posted on a web site.

That's just my two cents worth.

Michael, I think that is worth way more than 2 cents! Good work on looking into the report. That number sounded way to high.

So basically it's saying 96% of people actively looking for apartments are going to end up moving in 2009? Yeah, not sure how much value there is in that.