jenniferleclaire.com » Apartment sector picks up in recession

Apartment sector picks up in recession

April 1st, 2009

Most commercial real estate, such as shopping centers and industrial properties, will suffer through the recession until next year, but the apartment sector is poised to buck the negative trend. The rising foreclosure rate is turning homeowners into renters, and that’s been good news for landlords.

According to the first quarter 2009 PricewaterhouseCoopers Korpacz Real Estate Investor Survey, as the demand for multi-family housing catches up with supply, the apartment sector will emerge from the recession phase before its commercial property counterparts.

In South Florida, some foreclosed homeowners and other tenants who can’t or don’t want to purchase homes are moving into “hybrid apartment houses.” That’s what Michael Cannon, executive director of Integra Realty Resources-South Florida, a national real estate counseling and valuation firm in Miami, calls apartment houses that were converted into condos during the boom, and sold off to investors and flippers.

“But many of those condos never closed, the properties are now in distress and the developers are reverting to renting the unsold units as apartments,” he said.

Click here to read the rest of my story in The Real Deal.

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