The Austin residential rental market -- the whole thing, not just downtown -- has been very strong throughout 2007. Throughout the first half of the year, both rents and occupancies increased significantly. For example the mid-year citywide occupancy rate was 96.8 percent, up 2 percentage points from December. Despite the strong rental market, plans for hundreds of planned downtown rental units have recently been abandoned to make way for condos. At the both the Four Seasons Residences and the Monarch, no rental units remain even though hundreds were originally planned. The Monarch, in fact, was originally proposed as an all . . .
