It’s getting hard to find quality rental housing in the United States, a group of apartment owners and developers said at the International Builders’ Show last week in Las Vegas.

The credit market is to blame, they said.

“Despite a demand for our product that far exceeds the supply, affordable apartment developers are finding it nearly impossible to assemble the necessary capital to move forward with their projects,” said Robert Greer, president of Michaels Development Co. in Marlton, N.J. “Putting together deals that make sense is more difficult now than it has ever been -- primarily because the program's biggest investors of the past -- Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and large banks -- have been sidelined.”

Even market-rate rental units are being affected, said Bernard Markstein, the National Association of Home Builders’ staff vice president of forecasting and analysis.

The NAHB is the main sponsor of the builders show.

"Right now, we are forecasting 188,000 multifamily starts in 2009," Markstein said. That’s down more than 100,000 units from 2008.

For more than 10 years, starts have been steady at 250,000 to 300,000.

"The stability in the starts over such an extended time indicates that it is a sustainable level of development," Markstein said. “You can argue that the product mix between condos and rentals got skewed during the housing boom, but you can't say that there was overbuilding in the multifamily sector.”