Judy Kinney, apartment manager of Fountain Lake Estates, is experiencing an unusually hectic autumn season.

Monday, September 10, 2001

Judy Kinney, apartment manager of Fountain Lake Estates, is experiencing an unusually hectic autumn season. Eight out of 64 units she manages will be empty in the next months. She is busy with placing advertisements and preparing for cleanings and paintings.

&uot;I have been working here for nine years. But I have never had more than four vacant rooms at one time,&uot; said Kinney.

Economic downturn has started overwhelming the Albert Lea real estate market. The Farmland fire aggravates the situation, particularly for the rental market, experts say. Three tenants moving out of Kinney’s apartments are ex-Farmland employees.

One of them has transferred to another Farmland location, but the rest decided to pursue other opportunities outside Albert Lea.

Albert Lea has gone through a shortage of rental housing for a long time. Census 2000 indicated that the rental vacancy rate is 5.8 percent, which is below the national average of 6.8 percent.

The market climate seems to be changing.

A-LEA Apartments, a 71-unit facility on Janson Street, lost three Farmland employees after the fire. &uot;When I heard about the fire I felt like ‘Oh my goodness’, since I had 13 Farmland households,&uot; said Marie Reese, resident manager.

Though she could fill up the vacancies soon, more residents are expected to move out if Farmland does not reopen its factory in Albert Lea.

According to Reese the apartments maintained 96 to 97 occupancy rate last year. She anticipates it would be difficult to keep that figure without having Farmland employees.

A real estate expert points out the slowing economy forces people to downgrade their accommodations. While the demand for lower price housing is soaring, higher costs for construction and maintenance, especially energy cost hikes, make it difficult to supply cheap apartments.

The market for houses is relatively intact in comparison to the rental market. Nevertheless, it cannot get away from the stagnated economy overall.

Hugh O’Byrne, Century 21 O’Byrne Realty, has 150 properties on his list for sale currently, which is approximately 20 percent more than last year.

More significant changes in the market can be found, he said, in the sales cycle and demand for expensive houses.

Two years ago, houses on sale were in the market for only 70 days in average before purchase contracts were done. Now it takes 93 days. O’Byrne has 11 houses priced more than $200,000. &uot;But, the demands for those price ranges are so low,&uot; he said.

The Farmland issue has not affected the market so far, he said. However, he anticipates a negative impact in the long term.

&uot;500 people without job means a lot to whole economy,&uot; he said.