Click here for product news, upcoming events, interviews and for presentation materials from past events.
Matrix Research Bulletins
Years of warnings that rising Treasury rates would depress commercial real estate prices—during an extended period when rates stayed low and acquisition yields fell to record lows—has given the concept a “boy who cried wolf” quality.
At a time when optimism is rampant in the real estate industry, and the stock market is near all-time highs after a massive run-up, economists lived up to their billing as dismal scientists at the National Association of Business Economists (NABE) annual policy conference in Washington, D.C., last week.
U.S. multifamily rents have decelerated sharply over the last 18-24 months, across all metros and regions. Year-over-year rent growth rose as high as 5.5 percent in January 2016, before steadily and gradually dropping to 2.3 percent in December 2017. The downward trend has multiple causes—in-cluding diminishing affordability, increasing supply and slightly weaker job growth—that are present to one degree or another in each metro. However, the main driver of the deceleration appears to be the extent to which supply growth has put downward pressure on occupancy rates in individual metros.
Last year will rank as one of the most catastrophic in recent memory for Americans who experienced natural disasters. Storms in the Caribbean, Southeast and Gulf Coast—along with wildfires, floods and convective storms across much of the western U.S.—affected millions of lives and will require billions of dollars for recovery. Over the final quarter of 2017, multifamily rents grew materially, occupancy increased, insurance rates rose and policies tightened in many storm-affected areas. The destruction will continue to impact the real estate as well as the insurance industry throughout 2018.