Multifamily

During the great multifamily bull market of this passing decade, investors became increasingly comfortable with exposure to highly volatile metropolitan markets. In an era when it was difficult to make a bad investment decision, the most lucrative were, in most cases, located in areas of the country known for their roller-coaster real estate cycles. Indeed, it seemed as though a purchase capitalization rate could never be too low if an asset was located in one of the primary markets. Volatility was an ally, not a foe — an investment feature, not a bug. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and its attendant recession, however, volatility appears to have switched allegiances. The winds now favor, perhaps, the stable, predictable tortoises over the high-flying hares. In high-cost markets, the number of renters considering relocating to more affordable area codes has skyrocketed, and in the work-from-home era, this has become more of an achievable goal than an inchoate urge. For example, the San Francisco Apartment Association reported that 7.5 percent of tenants in the city — where rents increased at a 6.1 percent compound annual rate since 2010 — simply broke their leases in the three months that ended in May, moving …