While metro Washington, DC seems to rank at the top of the list of just about everyone's favorite apartment markets, current performance stats actually are a little stronger in adjacent Baltimore.

June's occupancy rate in Baltimore's base of about 190,000 apartments stood at an even 96 percent, up 2.1 percentage points from the late 2009 figure and 0.7 points ahead of occupancy in Washington, DC. Neighborhood-level occupancy was right around the 95 percent mark in even the weakest of Baltimore's individual submarkets, and the rate was 97 percent or better in Ellicott City/Columbia and the Towson area.

Effective rents in metro Baltimore jumped by 4.2 percent during 2010's initial six months, measuring change on a same-store basis. Since rents only backtracked a very tiny bit previously, growth during the first half of this year has already more than made up the ground that had been lost. Baltimore's current average monthly rent of $1,107, then, is an all-time high.

Viewed in the big picture, Baltimore is one of the first local apartment markets where recovery from the recent down cycle is complete.

It wouldn't be surprising if Baltimore's performance premium over the stats posted in Washington, DC actually gets a little more pronounced over the next couple of years. The DC metro is going to have to deal with processing more new supply, which likely will have some impact on the occupancy and rent growth performance potential at the top of the market there.

Statistical information presented in this post is acquired, to some degree through property management software and data collation at the city and county level.

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