Market Reports

504-508 E. 12th St. in New York City

Across the United States, real estate markets are in a recession for dealmakers. The run-up in interest rates over an 18-month period has choked off transactions. Potential buyers and sellers are deadlocked over price. Vulture investors are waiting for owners who paid too much for properties during boom years to be forced to sell.  New York City reflects all those trends — only more so. Many investors spent billions of dollars to buy rent-stabilized buildings in the city with plans to eventually raise the rents. But in 2019, lawmakers made …

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Spoke in Atlanta

Atlanta has experienced a dip in rents amid a surge of supply. The number of deliveries in the third quarter of this year increased 63 percent compared with the same period in 2022.  Most data sources indicate about 15,000 units have been delivered so far this year, but only about 5,000 have been absorbed. In short, new supply is greatly outpacing tenant demand, and effective rents fell on a year-over-year basis as of the third quarter.  Still, industry experts say this is likely only a temporary condition with developers struggling …

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Frame Med Center in San Antonio

The apartment market in San Antonio today is a mixed bag. Like most Sun Belt metros, supply exceeds demand in Alamo City. While property managers are struggling to lease up their communities, investors are sitting on the sidelines until interest rates stabilize and the market starts absorbing units developed during the post-COVID building boom.  On the plus side, population growth, a metric apartment investors prize because it feeds renter demand, is solid in San Antonio. In May, the U.S. Census Bureau ranked San Antonio the third fastest-growing city in the …

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Metronome at MidCity in Huntsville, Alabama

As secondary markets, the Huntsville, Birmingham and the Gulf Coast areas can’t lay claim to the dramatic population growth and major corporate relocations that have driven apartment demand in many neighboring Sun Belt cities.  That, however, has not prevented some developers from rushing into Huntsville. As a result, that market, like many others, is adjusting to what is arguably too much new supply. Meanwhile, Birmingham is growing at a more measured pace.  Those who invest in Alabama multifamily say the state may be close to attracting institutional investors’ attention because …

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Wrigleyville Lofts in Chicago

With the official end of the health emergency in May, it would be natural to assume that multifamily assets are operating in a much-improved environment versus three years ago, when policy responses to the pandemic locked down the economy, curtailed new applications, restricted tours and halted evictions.  That’s especially true because once shutdowns loosened, robust renter demand for apartments drove double-digit rent increases in late 2021 and early 2022.  But it could be argued that multifamily property managers face as tough an operating environment today as they did in 2020 …

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Henri in Phoenix

There is one U.S. county that has largely outpaced all the rest before, during and after COVID-19. It’s Maricopa County, which includes the Phoenix metropolitan statistical area (MSA). The county was home to about 4.2 million residents in 2012. Today, that number stands at more than 5 million, per the U.S. Census Bureau. Prior to COVID-19, much of that migration was tied to job growth, notes Christian Garner, president and CEO of Avanti Residential. “Phoenix over the past 10 years has greatly diversified through industries like education, medical and technology,” …

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Grand at Aliana in Houston, Texas

Houston apartment owners are still navigating through stormy weather, not just because hurricane season has kicked off. A surge in new supply, strains on net operating income (NOI) and capital markets pressures are testing the mettle of Houston developers and investors.  “Without a doubt, the big story is all the challenges hitting from every direction: a very tight lending market, stubbornly high construction costs, interest rates and insurance costs,” says Dennis (D.J.) Blanchard, vice president of development and legal affairs with Sueba USA Corp. “Firms have to be well-positioned to …

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Bartram Park in Jacksonville, Florida

The City of Jacksonville’s pro-development plans have apartment developers feeling confident amid soft market conditions challenging many cities today. Downtown Jacksonville is a 3.9-square-mile area that straddles about six miles of the St. Johns River. It’s made up of eight districts or neighborhoods along the river’s north and south banks. The Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) has identified these eight districts as sites for future development for residential, hotel, retail and office projects. Within these districts, developers are expected in 2024 to complete 31 multifamily projects, which include 8,402 units, according …

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Arthaus in Philadelphia

New residential towers and half-built high-rises crowd the Philadelphia skyline. Developers are building more apartments here than at any other time since real estate research firms started keeping track. It’s a big change for Philadelphia, which is not known for building booms, particularly within the city limits. Leading developers say they would break ground on even more apartments if they could, even as the number of vacant units creeps higher. However, hesitant banks and high interest rates have halted many development plans for now. High construction costs and the loss …

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The Berkley Riverfront sites in Kansas City

­While investment sales activity has slowed in the Kansas City apartment market due to the spike in interest rates, development is continuing at a brisk pace. RealPage reports that 8,582 units were under construction in metro Kansas City as of the second quarter. This number is on par with the second quarter of 2022 when 8,422 units were under construction, and significantly higher than the second quarter of 2021 (6,889 units) and the second quarter of 2020 (7,354 units).  Total deliveries in 2023 are expected to rank as the second …

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