Rents rising due to high demand

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Moving to Austin?

Well, join the thousands of others who are doing that every month. This high influx of people is driving the cost of renting up.

Apartment locators said they have seen a 20- to 25 percent increase during the past few months.

Cassie Brown, owner of Smart Austin Locating , is a licensed broker and has seen a lot of change, especially with prices.

“I've seen one apartment that ran $1,050 [per month] a couple of years ago, that's now going for $1,750 [per month],” Brown said.

Brown has a lot of clients who come from out of state, especially from California and New York.

"Stuff downtown has gone up considerably," she said. "Two bedrooms are going for $2,500 [per month], when they used to go for $1,600 to $1,700 [per month]."

Since January the city of Austin has received 18 new submissions for building permits to build apartment complexes in the area. A dozen apartment building permits have also been approved since the first of the year.

An additional eight complexes are already under construction, bringing a total of nearly 6,000 new units to the area.

High-tech companies, like Intel, are producing jobs, which is attracting people from all over -- including Mexico, India and other areas of the world.