Just a few months ago, the Midwest was making headlines nearly every day, with reports of the auto industry on the verge of collapse. It was no wonder, then, that Detroit’s unemployment rate was the highest in the nation, and industry experts reported that the future of multi-housing in the city depended on whether General [...]

Multifamily Starts: Multifamily starts for buildings with more than five units remain volatile. At 115,000 units at an annual rate—up from the previous month’s 85,000 units—it does read as a slight improvement. But it is nowhere near the 200,000-300,000-unit levels of 2007—a level that most agree would be necessary to produce multifamily housing adequate to [...]

If MHN’s global market report was a weather forecast, it might begin with gloomy clouds settling in over most of the multifamily world, with the possible exception of Washington, D.C. and Houston in the United States.
The forecast would then call for steadily brightening skies, especially over a number of coastal California cities and high-growth regions [...]

Multifamily Starts:A hefty bounce in February dribbled back down in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 152,000 units—about half of what has met the needs of the market in recent years. Even though there is still quite a bit of empty and foreclosed condo and single-family inventory, failure to start new communities is [...]

The last few months of 2008 saw a rapid evaporation of the momentum gathered earlier in the year. The overall Texas occupancy average ended the year at 88.5 percent, down 160 basis points from year-end 2007. For individual markets, the Dallas market fared best in occupancy and ended the year at 89.1 percent, falling 180 [...]

Commentary and Data Supplied by Dean Crist, Senior Economist, National Association of Home BuildersBuilding Materials Cement, which dropped in price for nine of the last 13 months, is up by 1.2 percent. And gypsum continued its almost uninterrupted rise in price – seven of the last eight months – with another 1 percent hike. Gypsum [...]

By Christopher Hosford, Contributing EditorSouthern California’s multi-housing market is a mixed bag. Project owners are holding their own with rents and occupancy, but only by default since little is being built. Mixed-income development isn’t thriving; the money that once flowed from redevelopment agencies has been siphoned off to help fuel the state’s battered finances.Projects once [...]

Median Condo Sale Price — The median price of existing condos in December 2008 was $181.400 — the ninth straight month of price declines. That number was $2,300 less than November’s figure, and $40,600 less than Dec. 2007’s median price. The only saving grace in this set of numbers is that the fire sale prices [...]

By Christopher Hosford, Contributing EditorMore than three years after New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, the area’s apartment industry is in a state of flux. Continuing high demand for rentals, the paucity of tax credits and public funds—combined with a constricted credit market—have brought multifamily development to a [...]

Commentary and Data Supplied by Dean Crist, Senior Economist, National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)Interest Rates: The prime rate has at an 18-monthly low — and it looks as if the mortgage rate is responding by dropping slightly as well. That should help move some bargain-hunters move off the dime and shrink the housing inventory. [...]