Apartment and Office Sectors Spark Investor Demand

The 75-year-old Real Estate Research Corporation based in Chicago and with offices around the country, reports that the apartment sector, long-recognized as the commercial property type that generally possesses better risk-versus-return characteristics than those for other property types.  Its investment level rating has just increased to its highest level since second quarter 2001.

"...apartment investments are proving to be safer bets during slowed economic times and are meeting the strategic initiatives of most investors."

Read the full Real Estate Research Corporation press release.

Concessions Burning Off As National Leasing Rates Increase

A market report from New York-based REIS indicates a net absorption of 44,199 units during the second quarter -- the highest in 10 years. And rental rates are increasing along with occupancy, with asking rents increasing 400 basis points and effective rents jumping 700 basis points. Read More in Multifamily Executive.

MPF Research Predicts All New Downtown Portland Apartments Will Be "Essentially Full" This Fall

MPF Research predicts that with the Portland metro area's current 96% occupancy rate, the only significant availability is the recent completions still moving through initial lease-up downtown.  "Those projects are making progress by leaps and bounds. The overall occupancy for developments built since 2000 in the urban core has soared from a low of about 73 percent in fall 2009 to a rate of 91.6 percent as of mid-2010. In another quarter or so, the newest completions seem likely to be essentially full."

Further, MPF reports that effective pricing climbed 3.5 percent during the initial half of 2010, with growth split about evenly between 1st and 2nd quarters. Rents are way up in the metro's suburban apartment centers, while pricing in the urban core is edging forward."  Read the full story.

Are Portland's Unreinforced Masonry Apartment Buildings a Threatened Species?

"Given the large number of and historic/ architectural importance of URM apartments to Portland, URM building owners, architectural preservationists, structural engineers, mortgage lenders and insurers, and city and state officials need to work collaboratively to reduce impediments to and increase incentives for seismically upgrading URM apartments." 

Read the full article discussing the costs and providing examples of retrofitting printed in this quarter's PSU Center for Real Estate Quarterly Report.  Your comments and feedback on the article are invited by the author: wmcmonies@robertskaplan.com.

DEAL OF THE DAY: HFO Brokers Sale of $17 Million Apartment Building

PORTLAND, Oregon--(MULTI-HOUSING NEWS)--HFO Investment Real Estate, a commercial real estate investment firm with apartment brokers based in Portland, OR, has brokered the sale of the Twin Creeks Apartments, a 220-unit apartment complex built in phases starting in 1996 and completed in 1999. Twin Creeks is a garden-style multifamily complex situated on nearly 12 acres in the Sunnyside corridor in Clackamas, southeast of Portland.

Read the Full Press Release.

PSU Center for Real Estate Releases Quarterly Report on Multifamily

PSU has released its quarterly real estate report.  Greg LeBlanc reports in the section on Multifamily housing that owners and managers are seeing improved conditions to the point that some have scaled back the use of concessions and introduced modest rent increases. Download the PDF of his report here.

The full 85-page issue of the Real Estate Quarterly focuses largely on the causes and consequences of what has been called the “Great Recession" on the Portland real estate market.  Download the full report.

Obama Administration Announces Multifamily Housing Finance As Topic for Aug. 17 Housing Finance Conference

Tomorrow, Tuesday August 17, 2010, at the U.S. Treasury Department beginning at 6 a.m. Pacific Time there will be a conference on the Future of Housing Finance.  The Obama Administration announced topics and key participants on Thursday. 

Topics include an 8:45 AM PDT breakout session hosted by Senior White House, HUD, and Treasury Officials on the topic of : Supporting Capital for Multifamily Finance.  The event will stream live at http://www.treasury.gov/.

Apartment Rentals Hit High Mark as Americans Shun Homes

The National Multi Housing Council (NMHC) reported results of its latest Quarterly Survey of Apartment Market Conditions Friday, stating the industry is on the rise, improving in all four indices surveyed and setting an index average record for the second quarter in a row. 

Read More > > >

Apartment Transaction Volume Jumps, Fueled by New Buyers

Second-quarter sales of apartment properties rose to $5 billion, bringing the total volume of 2010 sales to $9.6 billion, a 69.6 percent increase from the first half of 2009. Read more in Multifamily Executive.

U.S. Census Bureau Pegs Portland Metro Rental Vacancies at 4.5% - Nation's 4th Lowest

The U.S. Census Bureau has reported 2nd quarter 2010 vacancy rate estimates for the top 75 U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs).

The Portland/ Vancouver/ Beaverton area ranks 4th in the nation for vacancies at 4.5%. Portland's Q1 2010 vacancy rate was estimated at 3.8% - the new estimate shows a drop of 0.7% over the past 3 months. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA had a Q1 2010 vacancy estimate of 8.0 and a Q2 vacancy estimate of 6.9%, the nation's 10th lowest.

The Census Bureau reports the nation's lowest vacancy rates as follows:

• Ex Paso, TX - 2.1%
• Salt Lake City, UT - 3.8%
• San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA; Springfield, MA - 4.0% (2-way tie)
• Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA - 4.5%
• Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI - 5.1%
• San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA - 5.6%
• Alburquerque, NM - 5.7%
• Bakersfield, CA; Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH - 5.9% (2-way tie)
• Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA - 6.5%

The MSA's with the five highest vacancy rates were as follows:

• Orlando, FL - 20.6%
• Houston-Baytown-Sugar Land, TX - 17.4%
• Orlando, FL - 18.2%
• Jacksonville, FL - 18.6%
• Memphis, TN-AR-MS - 21.2%
• Akron, OH - 21.9%

Read the full report online.

Legal Pot Cultivation on Apartment Properties: A Growing Concern

A November ballot measure, Proposition 19, would allow Californians to possess up to an ounce of marijuana, smoke it in private, or at publicly designated locations, and grow it at home. Proposition 19 also allows government to tax pot. Landlords in California are gearing up for the bill's potential passage.  Remember the old saying "As California goes, so goes the nation."? Are owners in Oregon and Washington ready if it should happen here? Today we check in on the buzz at the Sacramento Bee.

Business Week Reports: Apartment Retals Surge in US

A 215,000 surge in the number of rental units the first half of 2010 is being explained as the result of home foreclosures coupled with an increasingly positive job market for young adults. Read the full report in Business Week.