Multifamily in the U.S. is experiencing its best occupancy since 2002. Why? Is it our stellar industry personality? Better dressed leasing agents? Shiny glass doors? Nope. Occupancy is high for the same reason gasoline goes up right before Labor Day... supply and demand. There are a few other reasons, of course. Let's explore them.
Mortgage squeeze. How many people do you know that have applied for mortgage financing? How many obtained the loan they wanted? As if refinancing were not difficult enough, new rules imposed by Fannie/Freddie have increased standards banks must meet to sell their originated loans to these GSE (Government Sponsored Entities).
While banks have the option of keeping a mortgage in house, standard operating procedure is to sell off each loan to the GSE's so those mortgage funds can be loaned again. Alas, if a loan does not meet the requisites for an immediate sale then most lenders will decline the loan. Fewer loans, more renters...
Lower home ownership rate. Fewer home loans means fewer home owners. We may be at the back end of this recession but we still have hundreds of thousand fewer families that own their own home today as compared to 2008. Fewer home owners, more renters...
Low wages for new wage earners. With high unemployment wages remain stagnant. For new college graduates, those in highly sought after fields are finding plenty of options. But for others requiring immediate "re-training" the road to stable employment is longer. When wages remain flat people are less inclined to feel good about their future, i.e., less likely to make big commitments- like buying a house. Not only are loans hard to come by, but if a family's earned income is lower than five years ago this tends to dampen future expectations. Low wages, low wage expectations equals more renters...
Five years of "below trend" Construction starts. New construction housing starts have hovered around 600,000 each year for several years now. Just to keep pace with nominal population growth and make up for homes (and apartments) that are removed from inventory, we need over 1,000,000 new homes built each year. Multiply this construction shortfall by five years and the gap begins to become obvious.
Decrease in existing Housing inventory. In summer 2011 Phoenix Arizona had a supply of more than twelve months of existing homes available for sale. That number is now around three months supply. With limited new housing product coming on line and foreclosure activity slowing the inventory is... not much. Fewer existing homes available for sale, more renters...
We may not see double digit rent growth (other than in 24-hour cities) but 3%+ or greater will be the national norm for the next several years with consistently high occupancy.
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Multifamily Insight is dedicated to assisting current and future multifamily property owners, operators and investors in executing specific tasks that allow multifamily assets to operate at their highest level of efficiency. We discuss real world issues in multifamily property management and acquisitions. This blog is intended to be informational only and does not provide legal, financial or accounting advice. Seek professional counsel. For more information, visit: www.MultifamilyInsight.com