Property Type

Despite the maturing commercial real estate cycle, Boston’s thriving economy continues to generate positive momentum for the metro’s multifamily property marketplace. Over the 12-month period ending June 30, 2017, area employers added 55,700 positions, growing the employment base by 2.1 percent. Job creation was driven by the typically high-wage healthcare and professional fields, and more than 30 percent of the new roles created were in office-using sectors. This healthy growth has supported a surge in household formation, which — along with the high cost of homeownership — is sustaining substantial demand for rental units. The significant affordability gap between renting and homeownership favors renting over homeownership by $591 per month. This, in combination with rising office-using employment, continues to boost apartment demand, which will support this year’s robust construction pipeline. Developers are on track to deliver more than 9,500 units to the marketplace in 2017, marking the highest point of the current cycle. Builders have focused their efforts in the urban core, particularly in the Fenway, Brookline and Brighton submarkets, and in first-ring suburbs. Nearly two-thirds of incoming units will be inside the city limits or in the closest suburban markets like Cambridge and Revere. The two largest deliveries each …