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If you’re in the multi-family industry and are looking for some signs of hope, today’s release from REIS Inc. wasn’t very helpful.

Reuters reported on REIS’s newest look at market conditions:

The U.S. apartment vacancy rate rose to an almost 30-year high of 8 percent in the fourth quarter, and rents dropped in the biggest one-year slump in 2009, according to real estate research company Reis Inc.

The fourth quarter was the worst of the year, REIS said, and a pick-up in 2010 will depend on how consumers are feeling about the job market.

Yet, the apartment market may still turn around this year if those out of work become confident enough about a job market recovery to move into a rental, Victor Calanog, Reis’ director of research, said on Thursday.

The Wall Street talked with Rich Campo, the CEO of Camden, who laid out the current reality: it’s a buyer’s market.

Landlords now must entice tenants to renew leases. “We’ll shampoo their carpets. We’ll paint accent walls. We’ll add Starbucks cards,” said Richard Campo, chief executive of Camden Property Trust, a Houston-based real-estate investment trust that owns 63,000 units. He said the first half of 2010 should be “pretty ugly,” but was optimistic the sector would pick up later in the year.

Want to get a look into the crystal ball? Watch the consumer confidence numbers and see how they line up with the job reports. If the job market strengthens and consumers keep an improved outlook, then the market for rentals will turn up.

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