Lument

It may be premature for multifamily investors to come off the sidelines and back into the acquisition fray. Still, the outlines of the post-pandemic landscape are growing clearer, and the hour draws near when owners and buyers must consider the buy/sell/hold mathematics of the future. Tampa presents a model for the unique economic factors likely to influence the nationwide multifamily sector. The initial phase of the post-pandemic analysis is likely to focus on the anticipated performance of “growth markets.” This category of metropolitan areas is characterized by a relative dearth of spatial and regulatory barriers to entry, lower land costs and lower business operating costs than the primary markets, as well as a demonstrated ability to support faster sustained employment and population growth than the national average. Historically, growth markets (e.g., Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix, Tampa) have facilitated volatile real estate cycles, featuring rapid growth during boom times, followed by often painful supply-driven corrections during periods of economic weakness. Apartment capitalization rates discounted the relative riskiness of their NOI streams accordingly, pricing growth market assets to going-in yields 75 basis points or more above comparable assets in the primary markets. The long multifamily bull market of the passing decade altered this …

How will the COVID-19 fallout impact the Miami multifamily market? Although many investors are approaching markets known for leisure travel and cruise industries with caution these days, RED Mortgage Capital research posted last week indicates Fort Lauderdale/Broward County may offer a more attractive risk and reward profile than is commonly understood in the intermediate term, even under severe recessionary stress. Can the same be said of Miami as many of the same arguments apply? Let us stipulate that coronavirus has struck Magic City a particularly sharp blow. Miami relies on international tourism to a larger degree than most other domestic travel destinations and has experienced greater tourism revenue and job losses as a result. Travel industry consultants STR analyzed the top 25 tourist destinations in America and noted that Miami hotels recorded the largest decline in average daily hotel room rates in April (-56.8 percent from 2019), while the metro area’s hotel occupancy plunged to 20 percent from 95 percent in 2019. Employment data are available only through March at this writing, but even at this early stage, job losses were severe. The Miami-Miami Beach metropolitan division employed population fell 86,000 in March, a one-month decline of 6.5 percent. Job …

Many multifamily real estate investors have moved to the sidelines until price transparency returns and the trajectory of property performance becomes clearer. It is a prudent strategy. Indeed, this period of forced inactivity is, perhaps, better used to reflect on the future and consider which U.S. apartment markets will offer the most attractive opportunities when the moment arrives to test the waters again. Conventional wisdom holds that markets with significant reliance on leisure travel employment will be hardest hit by the pandemic, particularly those with outsized exposure to the cruise industry. It’s hard to refute the logic. But investors who interpret it too literally may miss potentially attractive options. Take Fort Lauderdale, for example. The Broward County labor market has one of the highest exposures in the country to the leisure, hospitality and cruise sectors. More than 3.9 million cruise passengers embarked from the port last year, generating direct employment for about 15,000 residents and indirect employment for tens of thousands more in the lodging, dining and entertainment, air transportation and retail sectors. With the cruise industry taking on water surely investors would be well advised to steer clear of the Gold Coast? Perhaps not. In fact, the statistical impact …

Since the end of the Great Recession, Orlando has been among the country’s fastest-growing economies and strongest multifamily markets. After 2014, metro payroll employment increased at a 3.7 percent compound annual rate, 120 percent faster than the national average. Only Austin surpassed Orlando for payroll growth among the peer group of 50 large metropolitan markets, according to The RED 50, a proprietary econometric model developed by RED Capital Research. Personal income grew about 6.8 percent annually, 45 percent faster than the national average. Apropos of the apartment sector, effective rents advanced at a 5.9 percent annual rate, according to Reis data, surpassed only by Atlanta (6.9 percent), Dallas (6.0 percent) and Nashville (6.2 percent) among growth markets — and not by much. All the while, the sources of Orlando’s prosperity grew more diverse and its labor force more highly skilled. In the past five years, the fastest growing segments of the metro economy were professional, technical and scientific services, air transportation, manufacturing and construction. Indeed, employment growth in the sectors most popularly associated with Orlando — arts and entertainment plus food services and lodging — was outpaced by the finance and insurance industry. Nonetheless, theme parks, resort hotels, leisure service and …