Apartment vacancies up in Tulsa, economy to blame

The slow economy is prompting Tulsa apartment complexes to offer possible residents incentives to move in. <br><br>They blame the increase in vacancies on low interest rates and tighter budgets. So,

Wednesday, April 10th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

The slow economy is prompting Tulsa apartment complexes to offer possible residents incentives to move in.

They blame the increase in vacancies on low interest rates and tighter budgets. So, in an effort to boost the number of renters, apartment complexes are competing with each other by offering extravagant deals.

But, that is still not enough to stop some renters from moving out. Renter, Mike Shields, "Just a better investment on my money, you know when you rent you don't want your money to be thrown away every month and just ready to get into a house."

Marilynn Brown with Real Estate Finders of Oklahoma, "That's what I'm seeing is that we just don't want to go over 500 dollars that's our limit, where last year, 6, 7, 800 dollars just didn't seem to be a problem."

A recent report shows the vacancy rate has risen to 8% in Tulsa. But, back in 1984 during the oil bust, the rate vacancy rate climbed to 16%.