HOTCAKES: It took just 10 minutes for Linda Aksland to find a replacement tenant earlier this month, for a duplex at 415 N. Walnut Ave.

MANTECA — People who lost their homes to foreclosure have flooded the rental market this year, sending prices upwards and making it hard to find temporary housing.

Local landlords say they’ve been getting a lot more calls from this new breed of renters, which has allowed them to keep apartments completely booked up.

Foreclosures have continued to rise over the last two years, but local realtor Linda Aksland, who manages about 30 rental homes in Manteca, said the surge in rental demand only began this February.

“Early February is when it really, really took off,” said Aksland, who said it took her less than 10 minutes to find someone to fill her latest vacancy in a duplex on Walnut Avenue.

John Morrison, who manages Olive Park Apartments, a 72-unit complex on Northgate Drive, also saw a spike at the beginning of last month.

“Suddenly in a 12-day period, I had 12 move-ins, one right after the other: boom, boom, boom,” Morrison said. “It was right about the beginning of February.”

By this weekend, Olive Park will have no more vacancies, Morrison said.

The recent demand increase has also led many realtors and property managers to demand higher lease payments and better credit from renters.

Aksland believed that average rents had increased by about $100 this year. The duplex she rented on Walnut Road had recently gone for $975 a month but the new tenant will pay $1,100, she said.

For some, the increase in rental prices made up for a slow 2007, when almost everyone seemed to be buying a home.

Connie Kesler, who runs the 45-unit Captain’s Cove apartment complex on Union Road said she had dropped her rates to $685 a month last year, but had recently brought them back up to $725.

“Last year I had seven, eight, even 10 empties because people were able to go buy homes and move out,” Kesler said. “The market was dead for a while and now it’s picked up.”

Kesler even saw some of her old tenants return after their mortgages turned sour.

“I’ve had a couple people come back; people that left their home because of foreclosure and came back here,” she said.

Though they’re far from the majority of renters, many property managers said that former homeowners have made their presence felt on the rental market.

Aksland estimated that foreclosure victims only made up about 10 percent of her renters, and suggested that part of the recent demand may also come from people reluctant to enter a chaotic housing market.

“I think they are afraid to buy,” Aksland said. “I think they’re waiting for the bottom to hit.”

Meanwhile, foreclosures on investor-owned properties, which are often rented out, have forced more people to look for new places — and at the same time lowered the supply of temporary housing.

Morrison said he got as many calls from people whose landlords lost their homes as from those who faced foreclosure themselves.

Some of these foreclosed houses may return to the rental market soon, however, as investors come back to take advantage of rental demand.

“My investors are coming out of the woodwork,” Aksland said.