Yardi Matrix manager of business intelligence Doug Ressler was recently featured on the RealCrowd Podcast with CEO Adam Hooper. During the 40-minute conversation, the two chatted about the mid-year outlook for the multifamily market.

“The economy is starting its slow transition back. The Fed is considering their QE (quantitative easing) reduction program. You can begin to see the employment numbers perk up. You’re beginning to see that slow progression,” Ressler said as to the state of the economy.

Ressler discussed the double-digit rent growth observed in many multifamily markets across the U.S. this summer. He is bullish on the sector as well as on industrial real estate, which is also experiencing a period of strong performance.

Asking multifamily rents jumped more than 10 percent year-over-year (YoY) in August, the largest leap ever recorded by Yardi Matrix.

“That’s a year-over-year calculation, and it’s based on time period dependency. It goes back to a time when the economy was depressed, not really robust because of the pandemic and the lack of a vaccine,” Ressler explained.

Overall asking rents increased by $25 to a national average of $1,539, according to the Matrix Multifamily National Report. Single-family (build-to-rent) rents continue to grow at an even faster pace, with average asking rents up 13.9 percent YoY.

Build-to-rent homes are expected to remain popular for the foreseeable future, with demand fueled by more workspace flexibility and continued changes in renters’ work/life balance.

Creating hypothetical models of consistent three percent growth and charting the course of that growth over the pandemic period, would reduce the current double digit growth percentages by half, Ressler noted.

Listen to the podcast below for more details on what to expect in the multifamily market in the remaining months of 2021 and beyond.

The post Yardi Matrix Featured on RealCrowd Podcast appeared first on Yardi Matrix Blog.

Ressler and Hooper discussed the impact of demographic shifts, such as limited inbound immigration to the U.S., outbound migration from gateway cities and the impact of remote work policies.

“From a high level, what we’re seeing is that the recent year and half has really pushed the cycle in terms of time,” Ressler said. “It has been able to incent things that heretofore would have taken multiple years to accommodate.”

The longer-term impacts will be dependent on how many workers continue to do their jobs remotely and how many will ultimately return to the office. Those transitions are beginning to take place now as U.S. vaccination rates rise.

One regional trend that Matrix has observed, in conjunction with renter data from Yardi’s RentCafe online listing platform, is the relatively short distances that many renters have relocated, typically in search of lower rents and larger units while working from home.

“If I were to look at the Bay Area, somebody may be looking for a better price than San Francisco and settle on Oakland. The gateway markets, we think, are going to see a recovery. It’s just a duration shift, based on working from home and what people are doing to do,” Ressler said.

Another pre-pandemic issue that will continue to be a hot topic in multifamily is affordable housing (Class B and C).

“The Southwest and the Southeast markets look good in terms of overall rental rate increases, but a lot of the demand is in workforce housing, and that’s not where a lot of the supply is coming in,” Ressler noted.

You can listen to the conversation in its entirety below:

The post Yardi Matrix Featured on RealCrowd Podcast – 2021 Multifamily Breakdown appeared first on Yardi Matrix Blog.