A combination of factors has led to a shortage of available rental units on Saipan. Several realtors on island are having a hard time looking for units for their clients.<\/p>\n
For RE\/MAX office manager Mable Ayuyu, they started experiencing a short inventory of home rentals and apartment rentals immediately following Typhoon Soudelor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started with many families displaced, coupled with incoming groups including teams from [the Federal Emergency Management Agency], [Guam Power Authority], and other businesses flying in to assist in typhoon recovery. This created a large demand for immediate housing,\u201d Ayuyu said.<\/p>\n
Apartments being rented in bulk are also a factor in the shortage of available units.<\/p>\n
Ayuyu said they have a wait list exceeding 50 people this month. They have also received 95 typhoon-related inquiries since Aug. 3, and this continues to increase.<\/p>\n
This is the first time that they\u2019ve experienced a shortage, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe try our best to find housing that is suitable for renters but there isn\u2019t enough supply to keep up with the demand, especially following a major natural disaster. Many people are still without housing, opting to rent hotels,\u201d Ayuyu said.<\/p>\n
Del Benson of Marianas Living echoes the same sentiment. \u201cWe have a shortage of rental units on island.\u201d<\/p>\n
Benson said the shortage is because of the typhoon as well as the many people coming in related to the development of the island.<\/p>\n
He added that he had about two dozen inquiries on units in the last two to three weeks. Even FEMA, he said, called him to inquire.<\/p>\n
FEMA has been giving rental assistance to qualified individuals as part of their individual assistance due to Typhoon Soudelor.<\/p>\n
This shortage is also recognized by Zenie Mafnas, Northern Marianas Housing Corp. deputy corporate director and State Led Disaster\u00a0Housing Task Force state lead.<\/p>\n
Mafnas said they have been coordinating with FEMA in order to identify available units for rent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe took our own landlord registry and we called about almost 200 landlords,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Out of the 200 that they were able to contact, only 34 units were said to be available.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe shortage of rental resources is basically out of NMHC\u2019s hands. The reality of it all is that we don\u2019t have many landlords here [on] Saipan,\u201d Mafnas said.<\/p>\n
For the task force, Mafnas said they are focusing on rebuilding homes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the Housing Task Force is also focusing on is just rebuilding homes. So that it\u2019s a long-term solution for those that were damaged,\u201d Mafnas said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A combination of factors has led to a shortage of available rental units on Saipan….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[493,67,6333,7241],"class_list":["post-211197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-fema","tag-people","tag-typhoon-soudelor","tag-zenie-mafnas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}