After slipping out of its standard top spot last year during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, New York returned to the #1 spot on the list of top job gain markets in October, pushing Los Angeles back to the #2 spot. New York gained 247,300 jobs for the year-ending October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This was about 25,000 more than September’s annual total. Los Angeles added 227,500 jobs for the same period but recorded more than 27,000 fewer jobs gained for the year than the month before.
The usual leaders of the student housing space – properties within a half mile to campus – experienced drastic performance changes throughout the last 18 months. As the student housing sector moves beyond pandemic-induced performance shifts, will these pedestrian assets regain star status? The pandemic caused some bumpiness in the Fall 2020 student housing leasing season but Fall 2021 reported a return to stability toward the end of the pre-lease season. After hitting cycle-lows in occupancy and rent change, student housing enjoyed one of its best-ever years as demand returned in a big way.
Renters living in professionally managed market-rate apartments are more affluent than many might realize. Nationally, households who have moved in year-to-date during 2021 make an average of roughly $67,000 annually, and that typical income figure reaches about $90,000 for those opting for the luxury Class A stock. After standard incomes among move-in households backtracked a bit in 2020, significant increases returned in 2021. Comparing back to pre-pandemic “normal” times, today’s new residents earn 8.4% more than the new move-in renters did in calendar 2019.
After spending the last several weeks celebrating the strong ending of the Fall 2021 leasing season, it’s time to look toward Fall 2022. The first reading of the Fall 2022 pre-leasing registered in line with the year-ago rate. As of October, 5.2% of beds at the core 175 universities tracked by RealPage had been leased for the Fall 2022 academic year. That rate exactly matches Fall 2021’s October reading and only slightly undercuts the 7.4% reading seen in October for Fall 2020.
After suffering steep decline in 2020, apartment occupancy across the major Northeast markets recovered well and is now back to topping U.S. norms. While the U.S. apartment market saw occupancy decline in 2020 during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the major markets across the Northeast suffered a much steeper drop. This was significant because these markets typically enjoy a headline position for occupancy rates, given their urban appeal, job market and the fact that there’s just not enough product to house the population growth in these popular areas.
Rent payment stats from the National Multifamily Housing Council show healthy average collections at the nation’s stock of professionally managed apartments over the past year and a half or so. However, if you dig into the data that RealPage, Inc. provides for the NMHC analysis, you see a significant block of missed payments in Class C properties. Furthermore, collection rates are in decline for that lowest price point segment of the product mix.
Following the normal seasonal pattern, U.S. apartment leasing activity has slowed from the frenzied pace recorded in the spring and summer months. In turn, rent growth levels are easing. Effective asking rents for move-in leases climbed 0.6% during October, the slowest pace of growth recorded since February. At the peak seen in June and July, rents were rising more than 2% per month.
Regional performances in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest offer a little something for everyone – some markets are performing very well, others are meeting national averages, while some are still lagging notably behind U.S. norms. Even the worst performing markets, however, have logged some progress since hitting recent low points during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic downturn.
As evidence that builders are facing the combined headwinds of rising material and labor costs as well as supply chain delays, the pace of multifamily development is down. Multifamily starts slipped 5.1% to 467,000 units in September from August’s revised annual rate, while building permits fell 21% to 498,000 units, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. However, for the year, multifamily starts are up 38.2% and permits are up 18%.
Apartment occupancy is tight almost everywhere, but some U.S. apartment markets are achieving occupancy rates well ahead of historical norms. U.S. occupancy for market-rate apartments is at an all-time high of 97.3% as of September. That figure is 230 basis points (bps) ahead of the already healthy norm of 95% seen since the beginning of 2010. While all asset classes made notable progress recently, the Class C units have made the most. The nation’s most affordable line of product is now 280 bps ahead of the stock’s decade average.
Unprecedented demand for luxury apartments has been a key component in 2021’s record occupancy and rent growth performance in the multifamily rental sector. Class A apartment occupancy currently stands at 97.1%, the tightest rate recorded in the RealPage data history that goes back three decades. Effective asking rents for new leases are up a stunning 15.8% year over year in luxury communities, registering the biggest increase in any product category.
Some universities across the U.S. apartment market ended the Fall 2021 pre-lease season on a very high note. Student housing product across the U.S. ended the Fall 2021 pre-lease season in solid form, reaching the highest occupancy rate in years. Across the core 175 universities tracked by RealPage, average September occupancy hit 94.1%. Boosting the overall September occupancy, many schools claimed marks at or above the very tight 99% mark. Nearly 20% of the RealPage 175, or about 34 schools, had September occupancy rates at or above 99%.
The recent surge in U.S. apartment demand means there are thousands more renters today than there were when COVID-19 broke out last year. Some individual markets have had a stronger influence on that trend than others. As of 3rd quarter 2021, there are way more occupied units in some Sun Belt markets than there were in 1st quarter 2020, before the lockdowns started during the first wave of the pandemic.
While apartment rents are climbing at a fast pace throughout the U.S., there are spots where pricing does not break the bank for the typical household living in a professionally managed property. Not surprisingly, virtually all of these “bargain” rental markets are located in the middle of the country. Among the nation’s 150 largest metros, Fayetteville, AR, takes the top spot on RealPage’s ranking of bargain markets, edging just ahead of Oklahoma City, OK, and Little Rock, AR.
With new lease trade-out reaching historic peaks recently, some apartment markets are seeing incredible momentum pace significantly ahead of renewal lease trade-out. In the nation overall, a surge in leasing activity in recent months led to an all-time high in occupancy at 97.3% in September. With limited vacancies, new lease trade-out, which measures the change in rents when a unit turns over, hit more than 18.3% in September. This was the fastest momentum the market has seen since RealPage’s monthly reporting measures started tracking this trend in 2008.
Record demand for U.S. apartments in 2021 has pushed occupancy in the rental stock to all-time highs, leaving many places starved for more multifamily product. Going into the final quarter of the year, ongoing construction of market-rate apartments stands at 654,686 units. The volume of product on the way has been basically holding steady between 650,000 and 700,000 units for the past two and a half years.
The employment recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic recession slowed further in September. Just 194,000 jobs gained during the month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This was far fewer than the roughly half million jobs economists’ were expecting for the month. The good news is that the severity of the Delta variant appears to be waning as of the latter half of September, after the BLS calculated their figures. Additionally, revisions to the previous two months’ data added 169,000 jobs in July and August for a combined 1.46 million jobs gained.
The rapid and strong growth in the conventional apartment market of late likely benefitted purpose-built student housing as the sector approached the Fall 2021 leasing deadlines. As leasing activity for conventional apartments improved across the nation, prices for those apartments near college campuses rose significantly, making their counterparts in purpose-built student projects more attractive to price-conscious students.
Apartment vacancies nationally dwindled to another record low in September at just 2.7%, according to RealPage, Inc. This marked the fourth consecutive month of record-breaking lows in a dataset going back three decades. Ultra-low vacancy traces to unprecedented demand from both new renters moving in and existing renters choosing to renew leases. Remarkably, new lease demand in the 12-month period ending in September shattered the pre-2021 peak by an incredible 50.5%.
While rent payments in professionally managed apartments have been coming in at very healthy levels across most U.S. metros during 2021, collection rates are more challenging in a half-dozen locations. New Orleans is the spot with the biggest struggle. Looking at results for projects where RealPage, Inc. property management software is used, the share of households making rent payments in 2021 through September averages just 85.2%.
