NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Apartment vacancies nationwide are falling and rents are rising, according to a published report Monday.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the vacancy rate for the top 64 metropolitan apartment markets in the U.S. edged down to an average of 6.6 percent in the first quarter, from 6.7 percent in the fourth quarter. The vacancy rate was at 7.1 percent in the year-earlier period. The rates were compiled by Reis Inc., a New York-based real-estate research firm.

The firm also found effective rents, the rents that landlords actually collect as opposed to what they ask for, rose an average of 0.6 percent to $882 a month in the first quarter, after rising 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter and remaining flat in the year-earlier quarter.

Reis CEO Lloyd Lynford told the paper that while the drop in vacancy rates seems small, it's an important change given that vacancy rates rose in the first quarter of the past few years.

Rents and rental rates have been hurt by low mortgage rates, which allowed some potential renters to be home or condo buyers instead.

An improvement in rents can also become good news for homeowners. Economists have said that rents are a useful barometer for tracking the strength of housing markets. If the cost of owning starts to dramatically outstrip the cost of renting a piece of real estate, it can become a sign that speculation has driven up home prices above what is justified by fundamentals.

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