What is the average annual per unit expense for an apartment building investment? Great reader question answered.

Mike in Milwaukee, WI, that is a great question. Answer: $3,000- 5,000/unit/year. How’s that for an accurate but relatively useless answer? The real question is what is the annual expense per unit of the property you are looking at? If you are a large institutional investor like a REIT looking at national or regional averages like those published in the NAA Annual Survey (See the included charts for results from the 2011 survey) can give you an indication but you can bet the institutional players know their own costs to the penny.

Apartment Building Operating Expenses Per Unit 2011 — Source: NAA 2011 Survey of Operating and Income Expenses in Rental Apartment Communities

In most larger metros there are also companies who collect and publish apartment surveys showing the areas average rents, occupancy, expenses, etc. One thing to make sure of is that the survey is based on properties similar to yours. There are a number of national companies doing multifamily research but they tend to focus on institutional sized properties 100 units and up so their numbers wouldn’t be comparable for a smaller property. For instance the average property in the NAA survey has about 250 units.

The most important number is the actual Continue reading What is the average annual per unit expense for an apartment building investment? Great reader question answered.

Top 5 Apartmentment Building Investment Markets for Rent Growth, by Asset Class.

In an update to our earlier update on top markets, Axiometrics has put out a report on the top 5 apartment building investment markets for rent growth by asset class.

San Francisco is rocking in class A and B, and in class C it’s….. San Francisco! Interestingly A and C properties there are showing rent growth of almost twenty percent while class B is just under ten percent. Any thoughts on why A and C are double the class B rent growth in SF? Note that 9.3% in class B still leads the US- Continue reading Top 5 Apartmentment Building Investment Markets for Rent Growth, by Asset Class.

US Apartment Building Vacancy Below 5%, Rents Growing at Fastest Pace Since ’07.

Apartment Building Vacancies Plunge to 2001 Levels

Main bullet points from Reis Report’s Q2 Apartment Highlights:

National vacancies continue to plunge, ending Q2 at 4.7%.
There was a slight moderation in vacancy compression, following 10 quarters of vacancy declines.
With such low vacancy levels, landlords have been accelerating rent increases.
Effective rents increased 1.3%, the fastest pace since Q3, 2007.
Inventory growth remains restrained with just 10,000 units coming online.
Developers are starting to build more properties to take advantage of the tight market conditions.

How are vacancy and effective rents trending in your market?

What’s not to like about the Seattle and Portland Apartment Building Investment Markets?

“Even compared to a healthy and expanding nationwide market, multifamily in the Pacific Northwest is seeing exceptionally strong gains. A growing renter population and accelerating job growth have helped solidify cities like Portland and Seattle as cornerstones of the apartment industry, and the positive trends show no sign of letting up.” So begins a glowing report in the latest digital edition of MHN Magazine (On page 22). What’s not to like about an article like that, especially one with a cover shot as beautiful as the one in this article? Below is just a portion of it and Photoshopped or not it is something to behold.

The glowing words and photos are accompanied with a pretty good looking chart too, showing the declining vacancy and rising rents in those two markets as well: Continue reading What’s not to like about the Seattle and Portland Apartment Building Investment Markets?

Q3 Apartment Building Investment Reports Now Available From Marcus & Millichap

M&M covers 39 major apartment building investment markets in the US and have just published their Q3 reports. Here’s a list of the metros they cover:

They also provide snapshots of the Office, Industrial, Retail and Self-storage sectors in many of those markets, accessible from the tabs on the page. Note this information requires registration at the website to view.

Apartment rents rising at inflation rate- Freddie Mac video report

In their June 2012 Economic Update, Freddie Mac says: “Over the year ending March 2012, an additional 1.5 million households moved into rental housing. That’s a 4 percent increase in renter-occupied dwellings in a single year.”

The increase in apartment demand has helped to enhance property values, on average up about 25 percent during the past two years from their trough during the first quarter of 2010…

See the whole report here: Rental Markets: A Sign of Strength

The Danger of Averages: Seattle Apartment Rents by Unit Type 2002-2012

A piece on Seattle apartment building rents over the last ten years by Matt Goyer in his Urbnlivn blog really caught my eye. Matt looked at data from seattlerentals.com for four popular sub-markets and charted them out here. Naturally I wanted to see what that meant percentage-wise so I built a spreadsheet and added a percent change column. Here’s what that looks like:

Seattle Area Average Apartment Rents by Unit Type 2002-2012

All within a stone’s throw of 45% growth in 10 years, not bad at about 3.8% annual compound rent growth. But let’s slice the data another way and look at the rent growth by sub-market:

Now we start to see some divergence with Queen Ann at 61% (4.86% compound) and Belltown with 57% (4.59%). Where the ‘average’ rent growth really looks good is when it’s compared to Capitol Hill with only 34% (3.01%) and in Bellevue with only 30% (2.42%). Mind you that is just the ‘average’ 10 year rent growth for these markets so it’s only an indication of what any particular property may have achieved. But here’s where the numbers get really interesting: Continue reading The Danger of Averages: Seattle Apartment Rents by Unit Type 2002-2012

Updated CRE and Apartment Market Cycle Charts Now Posted by Glenn Mueller at Dividend Capital

Dr. Mueller is one of the leading researchers on the commercial and apartment building investment cycle but I have big questions about Seattle being placed at the bottom of the cycle in his latest Cycle Monitor report. According to MPF Research there currently are 6,000 new units under construction in Seattle (see here) and Essex Property Trust estimates that there will be 10,000 units coming on line in the next three years (see here). In fact the NMHC lists Seattle as one of three US markets in danger of overbuilding (see here).

Reis Reports is showing that while rents are up about 1% QoQ in Q1 2012, vacancy is starting Continue reading Updated CRE and Apartment Market Cycle Charts Now Posted by Glenn Mueller at Dividend Capital

Phoenix, Seattle and Washington, DC apartment markets at risk of overbuilding says NMHC panel

Report on the state of apartment building investment markets from the good folks at Joseph Bernard Investment Real Estate in Portland:

Continued positive multifamily demand fundamentals and ready access to capital at attractive rates is fueling a surge in new apartment development, according to industry executives.

Several hundred senior-level apartment executives gathered in Scottsdale, AZ, last week for National Multi Housing Council’s (NMHC) Apartment Strategies/Finance Conference and Spring Board of Directors Meeting. The following is the NMHC’s summary of what was discussed.

Continued low levels of new supply have led to a big bounce-back in rents as demand outpaces new construction. According to one panel of apartment executives, the new supply shortfall may be larger than once thought — as many as 700,000 to 1 million units — because many of the apartments built in recent years have been in the affordable, rather than market-rate, section of the market. Moreover, much of the current apartment stock dates back to the 1970s and is becoming obsolete, creating additional demand for new supply.

Select areas have seen such large upticks in the number of planned and under construction units that could turn into hot spots for potential overbuilding. In particular, certain submarkets of Phoenix, Seattle and Washington, D.C., appear somewhat at risk.

But, overall, new completions are still a very low percentage of total inventory.

Money Flowing for Multifamily

There is a wall of private capital that wants into the multifamily space. More than 250 private equity funds currently are Continue reading Phoenix, Seattle and Washington, DC apartment markets at risk of overbuilding says NMHC panel

Seattle Apartment Market has 6k units under construction says MPF Research video

2/3rds of those are located in downtown, Capital Hill and Ballard. Owners of existing properties in those areas are about to have a bunch of new competition. With rent growth slowing to just about the national average what does that say about where we are in the apartment building investment cycle?

Click on the image to see the MPF Research video