For the second year in a row, the Wrangell-Petersburg area has the lowest rental housing vacancy rate among 11 areas covered in the state’s annual survey.

The combined vacancy rate for single-family rental homes and apartments in the two communities in March 2026 was 1.1%.

That is far below the statewide median of 5.4%, and a lot lower than the 4.1% in Juneau, which is chronically short of housing.

Fairbanks had the highest vacancy rate at 10.1%, followed by Ketchikan at 8.4%.

This year’s Wrangell-Petersburg vacancy rate was much tighter than the 3.4% combined rate for rentals in the two communities in the 2025 survey.

The rates were reported in the September issue of the Alaska Economic Trends magazine, produced by the Alaska Department of Labor research and analysis section.

“Every March, we survey thousands of landlords and property managers in selected areas of Alaska, in cooperation with the Alaska Housing Finance Corp.,” the report explained.

This year’s survey included 184 rental units in Wrangell and Petersburg, of which only two were vacant in March. The 2025 survey found six vacancies out of 178 surveyed units.

The survey combines Wrangell and Petersburg because of their small sample sizes.

As tight as the rental market is for tenants in Wrangell and Petersburg, the average adjusted monthly rent in the two communities for a two-bedroom apartment— rent plus estimated utilities — was the lowest among the 11 areas covered in the state survey, at $1,288.

That is a 4.3% increase from last year, a little more than the statewide average rent increase. This year’s $1,288 in Wrangell-Petersburg is 20% higher than the 2020 average.

Rents in the two communities are very similar, said Bennett McGrath, who owns Anchor Properties, with 42 rental units under management in the towns.

Wrangell-Petersburg rents were the second lowest in the state in last year’s survey, with the Kenai Peninsula Borough coming in lower. But this year, the order switched and Kenai came in at the second lowest at $1,336 a month.

Wrangell-Petersburg and the Kenai Peninsula have held down the lowest-rent titles for several years.

The average in Ketchikan was $1,671, with Bethel the most expensive, at $2,030, according to the state report.

The analysis is part of the department’s regular monitoring of housing costs. The rental comparisons covered much but not all of the state — the North Slope Borough and Bering Strait region, for example, were not included.

The Alaska Economic Trends article also reported on mortgages, separating Wrangell and Petersburg. The average monthly mortgage payment in Wrangell last year was $1,847, less than Petersburg’s average of $1,944.

The Kenai Peninsula and Fairbanks were the lowest in state, according to the mortgages table compiled with statistics from the Alaska Department of Labor and the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Rising home prices and significantly higher interest rates pushed up the average monthly mortgage payment in Alaska by 84% from 2019 to 2025, from an estimated $1,110 to $2,044, the report said. 

The increase in Wrangell over the same period was 93%.

Mortgage payments in the report do not include utilities, property taxes or insurance.

There were three new mortgages issued in Wrangell in 2025, according to the report, down from a dozen in 2019.

Not all new homes have a mortgage, and Wrangell issued building permits for six new single-family homes in 2025, the most in more than a decade, the report said.

The median value of a home in Alaska was $415,000 last year, a big jump from about $300,000 in 2019. Another limiting factor for homebuyers is higher interest rates, from a median under 3% in 2020 to more than 7% this month.

Buying a house remains a hefty burden in Alaska, said Gunnar Schultz, a state labor economist and one of the authors of the housing-cost stories. “It’s still so much higher than it was during COVID and before,” he said in an interview with the Alaska Beacon.