Looking for a rental apartment? Zillow offers five suggestions, noting that in a recent survey they took, more than a third of respondents said it was harder to find the rental they're in now than it would be to get a new job. The advice: pay more up front, sign a longer lease, be flexible on move-in dates, be one of the first to look, and have strong references.

It probably sounds like good news for those enjoying strong demand and rents in multifamily, but ultimately may not be. What favors one side in negotiations at a given moment frequently leads to unstable markets that can turn things upside down in unexpected ways.

The progenitors of current conditions that make obtainment of an apartment seem akin to winning the lottery have been in the works for years. Housing stock has been underdeveloped. "While the total stock of US housing grew at an average annual rate of 1.7% from 1968 through 2000, the U.S. housing stock grew by an annual average rate of 1% in the last two decades, and only 0.7% in the last decade," real estate economics consultancy Rosen Consulting Group and the National Association of Realtors noted last year.