The Radix Review: Multifamily Trends Explained

This is a narration of our weekly Rent and Operating Trends Report. The U.S. economy had a surprisingly strong 2023, as prognosticators initially forecast a high chance of recession at the beginning of the year. Instead, equity indices performed very well, with the S&P 500 rising 24%, job growth continued its steady expansion, and economic growth outperformed nearly all expectations. A key dri...

This is a narration of our weekly Rent and Operating Trends Report. As we approach the end of 2023, this week’s report will be our last of the year. As such, I looked back over the prior 51 weeks at some of the key trends, predictions and observations we made to identify where we got it right and where we missed the mark.  From an economic perspective, the year began on very shaky footing. I predi...

This is a narration of our weekly Rent and Operating Trends Report. The Fed is holding its final meeting of the year this week and they are likely to leave interest rates unchanged. After rapidly increasing interest rates through the first half of the year, the Fed has now kept rates stable since July. Many market prognosticators expect rates to drop next year, with some calling for rate cuts as s...

This is a narration of our weekly Rent and Operating Trends Report. The U.S. economy was given another boost last week as Q3 GDP was revised upward to an annualized rate of 5.2%, making the rate of growth last quarter more than double the rate for the first half of this year. Q3 was also the strongest quarter for economic growth since 2021 when the U.S. economy was still working through the volati...

This is a narration of our weekly Rent and Operating Trends Report. It was a fairly quiet week in the U.S. economy as the Thanksgiving holiday limited data releases last week. Existing trends continued from the prior week as the 10-year treasury continued to drift lower. The yield on the 10-year is now 4.42%, nearly 60 basis points below its recent peak in mid-October. Oil prices continue to fall,...

This is a narration of our weekly Rent and Operating Trends Report. Is the monetary tightening cycle over? Has the Fed orchestrated the illusive soft landing for our economy, reducing inflation to a sustainable level without sending the nation into recession? The answers to these questions are still yet to be fully determined, however last week’s lower inflation report provides further evidence th...

This is a narration of our weekly Rent and Operating Trends Report. The 10-year treasury is down about 35 basis points from its recent high in mid-October as signs of slowing fundamentals in the economy continue to arise. Mortgage rates have also fallen in recent weeks, prompting a slight uptick in demand for mortgages. The recent drop in mortgage rates may bring some renters back into the buyer p...

This is a narration of our weekly Rent and Operating Trends Report. October employment growth was weaker than it had been in previous months with new job gains totaling 150,000. August and September gains were revised down, painting a slightly more bleak picture of the employment market than we have seen in recent months. As a result, the 10-year treasury retreated quickly, although it remains hig...

This is a narration of our weekly Multifamily Market Report. The apartment market is slowing down in a number of metros nationwide, with most markets falling into one of two buckets of underperformance. Metros in the southeast and southwest are experiencing some of the most new construction since the 1980’s resulting in immense new supply pressure, despite some of the strongest demand drivers in t...

Portland apartment fundamentals have declined in recent months as many markets across the country begin to see growth dip negative. However, as Rebecca Sands, Vice President at RPM, points out, context in this market is critical, and Portland has been one of the best performing markets on a compound annual growth basis for the past 10 years. Suburban multifamily is doing well and some urban pocket...

This is a narration of our weekly Rent and Operating Trends Report. U.S. economic growth is gaining momentum following a very strong initial estimate of Q3 GDP. The broad measure of economic output showed the economy expanding at a 4.9% annual rate, more than double the growth rate from the first half of the year. Despite higher interest rates throughout the quarter, the American consumer continue...

This is a narration of our weekly Multifamily Market Report. Denver apartment fundamentals are holding firm and growing slowly as we near the end of 2023. However, in this market growth of any kind is good growth, as most markets are experiencing declining fundamentals. Annual rent growth remains positive in the Mile High City and occupancy losses have been some of the lightest in the nation. Lead...

Multifamily fundamentals have cooled in most markets nationwide, but Denver is maintaining its strength. As one of the few markets still seeing annual rent growth, the Mile High City is well positioned in the current market turbulence. As David Polewchak, Vice President of Asset Management at Orion Real Estate Partners, explains, supply is starting to wane, while demand has been steady across metr...

This is a narration of our weekly Rent and Operating Trends Report. In what is perhaps something of a silver lining for the rental housing sector, recent data suggests it is the most expensive time to buy a single family home since the mid 1990s.  But, as with all things in the current real estate market, there is more to the story. The economy as a whole is doing generally well, but the housing m...

This is a narration of our weekly Multifamily Market Report. Phoenix has seen a rapid slowdown over the past year, as apartment performance declined amid high supply. However, as we near the end of 2023, leading indicators are beginning to show signs of strength for Phoenix multifamily. Lagging indicators remain negative, and will likely continue contracting through the winter months, yet the rece...

The Phoenix market has been one of the most active MSA’s for new supply over the past few years. As a result, the new units available have combined with a softening in demand to slow property performance and send most multifamily metrics into negative territory. However, as Dex Hiland, Director of Client Services at Greystar points out, the long-term demand drivers including migration, job growth,...

This is a narration of our weekly Rent and Operating Trends Report. Inflation remained unchanged in September with prices rising 3.7% compared to the year before. Annual price increases were flat after increasing in both June and July, according to the Consumer Price Index. On a short-term basis, prices increased 0.4% from the prior month. While the reported figures were slightly higher than analy...

This is a narration of our weekly Rent and Operating Trends Report. The economy and interest rate market are working in opposite directions at this point in the cycle. 336,000 new jobs were added in September, nearly doubling analyst expectations. While this is good news for the overall economy, it raises additional questions about the Fed’s course of action with monetary policy going forward. Con...

This is a narration of our weekly Rent and Operating Trends Report. We are excited to announce some new changes to the Rent and Operating Trends Report beginning this week. Revenue per Available Unit (RevPAU) is a comprehensive apartment performance metric that combines net effective rent with occupancy to identify the total potential revenue given the number of operational units in a property, su...

This is a narration of our weekly Multifamily Market Report. Atlanta’s apartment market is struggling as new supply weighs heavily on performance from the property level all the way to the market level. The local economy continues to flourish as job growth and population growth remain among the best in the country, however the onslaught of new apartment construction has outpaced demand. Suburban p...

New supply is dragging down rents and occupancy rates across the Atlanta metro. An increase in fraudulent applications is adding additional challenges to property managers in the metro. With a number of headwinds facing Atlanta operators hear what local expert Chris Burns, Senior Vice President at Lincoln Property Company expects to see in the market in the coming year. Explore our website for mor...

This is a narration of our weekly Rent and Operating Trends Report. An inverted yield curve, where long term interest rates are higher than short term interest rates, is often a leading indicator for a recession. In late 2022, during the Fed’s aggressive monetary tightening, the yield curve inverted and remains inverted nearly a year later. However, as the Fed has slowed down their interest rate h...

This is a narration of our weekly Rent and Operating Trends Report. The U.S. economy awaits another Fed meeting, scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Most economists predict that the Fed will hold rates steady at the upcoming meeting, but it is far from an indication that the monetary tightening cycle has concluded. There is still belief that the Fed could raise one more time in 2023,...

This is a narration of our weekly Multifamily Market Report. While Seattle is not commonly referred to as a Gateway market, its fundamentals often follow many of the tech-heavy Gateway’s on the west coast and in the northeast. As the multifamily industry cools amid significant new supply pressure, Seattle is once again trending like its peers. Traffic, overall occupancy, and occupancy growth are t...

The national apartment transaction market has been significantly challenged by rising interest rates and softening fundamentals and the Seattle market is no different. While return to office mandates are helping revitalize the urban core in Seattle to an extent, it is still difficult to finalize deals with such uncertainty in monetary policy. Yet the framework for a vibrant economy and robust mult...