Residential growth in city rivals suburbs (Atlanta, Dallas: real estate, rent, condo)

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by hautemomma

I think a good question is what kind of residential growth - renters or buyers?

I think more people are homeowners in the burbs, whereas the city attracts a more transitional, mobile demographic of renters.

You make it sounds like renters are less of a person than homeowners?

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by arjay57

I would say for multi-family they are counting units, not buildings. The COA hasn't added lots of apartment units but certainly not thousands of new buildings.

For example, the Census bureau says that in 2015 metro Atlanta added 195 new structures with 5 or more units.

It doesn't break down how many of those are in the city proper vs other areas, but my guess would be that maybe 25-30% are in the city limits. (And that is a total guesstimate).

It's gotta be more than 25-30% in the city. I don't think builders know how to make anything other than an apartment building in this town anymore.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by waronxmas

It's gotta be more than 25-30% in the city. I don't think builders know how to make anything other than an apartment building in this town anymore.

Well, 30% would be nearly 60 new apartment buildings in town built just last year.

Were there more than that?

I honestly don't know.

[Atlwarrior]

I wish it was more condos and not just apartments.

[Ant131531]

Atlanta's total 5+ unit permits was 6678 in 2015. For the entire metro, it was 9929 so city of Atlanta made up about 2/3 of the total apartments in the metro area.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by arjay57

According to the Atlanta Business chronicle residential growth in the city proper is rivaling that of the sububs.

Those numbers actually show that growth is speeding up in those suburbs contrary to what is said in that excerpt. When you extrapolate those 2 month numbers over a year, Gwinnett is slightly up, Forsyth slightly down and Cobb way, way up.

Maybe they meant to say "relative," but that's not the wording they chose.

[magnetar]

Originally Posted by bu2

Those numbers actually show that growth is speeding up in those suburbs contrary to what is said in that excerpt. When you extrapolate those 2 month numbers over a year, Gwinnett is slightly up, Forsyth slightly down and Cobb way, way up.

You can't extrapolate numbers from the first two months of the year throughout the next 10 months of that year. Not unless you just want to make stuff up. Construction is seasonal, so you can't simply multiple two months by 6 and assume that's the yearly rate.

Regarding the other conversation, the data source for the article is SOCDS Building Permits Database. You can look it up for yourself and see the breakdown of how many units of each type were issued in each city. Each apartment or condo in a multifamily building counts as one permitted unit. Yes, most of Atlanta's gain was in multifamily buildings, which should surprise no one.

Originally Posted by hautemomma

I think a good question is what kind of residential growth - renters or buyers?

It's not really that interesting of a question. When times are good, complex owners can count on a steady stream of new tenants to replace those who move away. But when times get rough, the Bush recession made it quite clear that owner-occupied single-family homes aren't any more economically stable than apartments.

[AtlantaIsHot]

Originally Posted by CCATL

Are there stats anywhere for where all of these people moving to the far-flung suburbs are working? I'm curious if most of them have shorter commutes to other northern suburbs, or if they're coming down into the city. I really can't imagine that commute to Atlanta as is, never mind as the building boom in those areas continues.

It's my understanding from past census figures and statistics and local people that a lot of them just commute to north Fulton. Alpharetta is a major employment center and attracts many commuters. I'd say that many of them are in fact going to Perimeter and Atlanta too.

[AtlantaIsHot]

Originally Posted by Saintmarks

And my question... does a multi family unit count as one permit... or a 200 unit apt complex count as 200 permits?

I'd like to know this question too. You can go to the census website and get a lot of information. For example, during February 2016, the Atlanta MSA issued 3,772 building permits. It's broken down as such: 1 unit-1,852; 2 units-0; 3 or 4 units-0; 5 units or more-1,920; number of structures with 5 units or more-31.


This suggests that they are counting the individual units within a single building structure as one each, while also tallying the total number of multi-unit building structures. But I'm still not sure either. If you figure it out for certain, let me know.

[hautemomma]

I would say the Bush recession was exceptional with what happened to homeowners, with mortgage fraud, the emphasis on interest-only mortgages, major job loss, wage deflation / stagnation and more. There are lots of homeowners who made it through prior downturns, still keeping their homes, but the issues of 2007/8 were a constellation unlike a typical economic slowdown.

Many condo projects turned into apartments after the recession. Fewer people qualify to buy, and it's harder for investors to get loans for owner occupied units.