The state Department of Labor and Alaska Housing Finance Corp. released a report Thursday confirming something that just about any Craigslist-perusing apartment hunter could tell you: in Alaska, and in Anchorage especially, rental housing is getting more expensive.
Median rent prices in the state's major population centers rose 5 percent over last year, according to the report, to $1,119 from $1,065, or a statewide increase of $54.
That's a steeper jump than between 2011 and 2012, when rents rose just 2 percent.
Those figures include utility costs.
Anchorage's rents, at $1,154, were the second-highest out of the 10 areas in Alaska surveyed, behind only the Kodiak Island Island Borough. That's about $50 more than last year in Anchorage, or a 4 percent increase.
The median price for a one-bedroom apartment in the city is just under $1,100, rising 7 percent from last year. Residents would have to make $44,000 a year, or $21.15 an hour, to avoid spending more than the generally accepted standard of 30 percent of their salary on housing, according to figures from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Interestingly, however, there are more vacant housing units in Anchorage and around the state than there were a year ago. In Anchorage, the vacancy rate is 3.3 percent, up from 2.6 percent last year, and across Alaska, the vacancy rate rose to 5.2 percent from 4.4 percent.
Typically, rent prices are expected to go up as vacancies decrease, said Rob Kreiger, a state Department of Labor economist who worked on the survey. But rising property taxes or energy prices can complicate the relationship between the two, he said -- a spike in oil prices, for example, could cause rents to go up even if demand for rooms is decreasing.
Landlords "would have to raise the rent regardless of how many tenants are vying for units," Kreiger said.
Some of the cheapest housing in the state can be found in the Mat-Su Borough, which was the only area where rents actually dropped, to $940 from $1,004, or a decrease of 6 percent.
That's $214 lower than Anchorage, which is just 35 miles away on the Glenn Highway. But commuters beware: fuel costs would quickly eat up any savings, as a daily round-trip in a mid-size car would cost about $225 a month.
One other intriguing statistic from the survey: 95 percent of the rental units surveyed in Anchorage have an electric stove, with the remainder using natural gas.
"It could just be a matter of convenience," Kreiger said. "Or maybe it's cheaper."
Reach Nathaniel Herz at nherz@adn.com or 257-4311.
By NATHANIEL HERZ