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Not that I disagree, but that's only "insignificant" in C-D logic. In real-world logic, it makes far more sense to know the total numbers and percentage increases in order to gauge where people are moving and where jobs are increasing. How many are being built per square mile isn't a generally useful number.
In the context of this thread its useful becuase not including it warps the number in favor of cities with massive adminstrative limits. I realyyy doubt Nashville or Dallas are building as many mult-unit apartments in the same area as Seattle or DC fo example.
Nashville is over 500 sq/mi in land area.... Boston is 47. Thats not apples to apples.
Cities that have to build more densely will always have higher land values which in turn beggits more expensive rents which begits more expensive buildings which further raises land values and the hamster wheel spins. It completely changes the demographics of who can and does move to certain areas of a city.
You need to know where the people are moving to within said city and the only way you can get that is by unit/density tracts. Unit density is one of the primary driving cost of land value, you can't get that by just have raw percentages and total numbers.
In the context of this thread its useful becuase not including it warps the number in favor of cities with massive adminstrative limits. Nashville is over 500 sq/mi in land area.... Boston is 47. Thats not apples to apples. High land value beggits more expensive rents which begits more expensive buildings and the hamster wheel spins.
These statistics are for metro areas, not city limits.
I think some posters are really underestimating just how much population growth is moderating in legacy urban cities and has really shifted to the Sun Belt. So many are so quick to brush off the 2020 one-year Census estimates, but there's no doubt at the very least it was picking up on a trend. The lack of affordable housing/rent is driving a significant portion of this, and it will continue to.
A good indicator of the absolute growth in multifamily units can actually be obtained by the Census monthly reports on building permits, which are provided at the state and MSA levels:
The more granular data show the number of new permits for buildings with 5 or more units, which is a very good sub-indicator for larger apartment buildings.
In short, yes, cities like Austin, Nashville, Miami, Phoenix, etc. are absolutely matching or exceeding growth in Chicago, Boston, DC and SF (interestingly Philadelphia had an explosion of multi-family permits on par with Phoenix, but that's due to an underlying tax abatement expiration). NYC continues to lead in absolute numbers, but I have to wonder if there's some overbuilding going on there now.
Bottom line, the country's urban growth has been shifting to the Sun Belt for quite some time. And post-pandemic, that looks to have only been more solidified for numerous reasons.
I think some posters are really underestimating just how much population growth is moderating in legacy urban cities and has really shifted to the Sun Belt. The lack of affordable housing/rent is driving a significant portion of this, and it will continue to.
A good indicator of the absolute growth in multifamily units can actually be obtained by the Census monthly reports on building permits, which are provided at the state and MSA level: https://www.census.gov/construction/bps/msamonthly.html
The more granular data shows the number of new permits for buildings with 5 or more units, which is a very good sub-indicator for larger apartment buildings.
In short, yes, cities like Austin, Nashville, Miami, Phoenix, etc. are absolutely matching or exceeding growth in Chicago, Boston, DC and SF (interestingly Philadelphia had an explosion of multi-family permits on par with Phoenix, but that's due to an underlying tax abatement expiration). NYC continues to lead in absolute numbers, but I have to wonder if there's some overbuilding going on there now.
Bottom line, the country's urban growth has been shifting to the Sun Belt for quite some time. And post-pandemic, that looks to have only been more solidified for numerous reasons.
Who is underestimating this shift? We all know about sunbelt growth. LA is in the sunbelt btw.
To be clear this thread is about percent apartment increase, not total growth. The top city - Nashville - has historically been mostly single family homes so we're now seeing more apartments. Nashville doesn't have the most apartments being built nor even the most new apartments per capita. What it apparently has is it's projected to have the largest increase in apartment inventory in 2022. Just one year. Every year that gets harder to duplicate because the apartment base number is larger. It's a statistical anomaly. Unless something dramatic happens, Nashville likely won't be anywhere near the top in just a few years.
I think some posters are really underestimating just how much population growth is moderating in legacy urban cities and has really shifted to the Sun Belt. So many are so quick to brush off the 2020 one-year Census estimates, but there's no doubt at the very least it was picking up on a trend. The lack of affordable housing/rent is driving a significant portion of this, and it will continue to.
A good indicator of the absolute growth in multifamily units can actually be obtained by the Census monthly reports on building permits, which are provided at the state and MSA levels:
The more granular data show the number of new permits for buildings with 5 or more units, which is a very good sub-indicator for larger apartment buildings.
In short, yes, cities like Austin, Nashville, Miami, Phoenix, etc. are absolutely matching or exceeding growth in Chicago, Boston, DC and SF (interestingly Philadelphia had an explosion of multi-family permits on par with Phoenix, but that's due to an underlying tax abatement expiration). NYC continues to lead in absolute numbers, but I have to wonder if there's some overbuilding going on there now.
Bottom line, the country's urban growth has been shifting to the Sun Belt for quite some time. And post-pandemic, that looks to have only been more solidified for numerous reasons.
No one is understemating sunbult growth. Like 2Easy said this is percentage growth of multi-units, not absolute numbers.
Urban legacy cities (Boston, NYC, Chicago etc..) already have significant amounts of mult-family units in their pre-existing urban fabric so they have to built exponentially more to get the same percentage growth as SFH dominant Sunbelt cities.
A good indicator of the absolute growth in multifamily units can actually be obtained by the Census monthly reports on building permits, which are provided at the state and MSA levels:
The more granular data show the number of new permits for buildings with 5 or more units, which is a very good sub-indicator for larger apartment buildings.
Can you explain more about the Philly tax abatement thing? I don't really understand.
In any case, here's the top 30 MSAs by "5+ unit" permits year-to-date as of Nov 2021 per this source:
1) New York - 37,165
2) Dallas - 24,473
3) Austin - 23,036
4) Seattle - 18,263
5) Los Angeles - 16,508
6) Denver - 13,891
7) Miami - 13,859
8) Phoenix - 13,274
9) Philly - 13,176
10) Houston - 13,037
11) Minneapolis - 12,402
12) Orlando - 12,326
13) Nashville - 12,309
14) DC - 12,175
15) Boston - 8,839
16) Charlotte - 8,770
17) SF - 7,793
18) San Antonio - 7,760
19) Chicago - 7,397
20) Raleigh - 7,226
21) Portland, OR - 6,367
22) Atlanta - 6,043
23) Jacksonville - 5,801
24) Salt Lake City - 5,114
25) San Diego - 5,028
26) Tampa - 4,810
27) Columbus - 4,388
28) Madison - 3,922
29) Colorado Springs - 3,667
30) Las Vegas - 3,389
Course "total units" is a whole different ball game. It's amazing to me how many single family homes are going up in the sun belt cities. Do they not take up a lot of space? How do they pack them all in?
Last edited by Boston Shudra; 01-22-2022 at 07:19 PM..
To be clear this thread is about percent apartment increase, not total growth. The top city - Nashville - has historically been mostly single family homes so we're now seeing more apartments. Nashville doesn't have the most apartments being built nor even the most new apartments per capita. What it apparently has is it's projected to have the largest increase in apartment inventory in 2022. Just one year. Every year that gets harder to duplicate because the apartment base number is larger. It's a statistical anomaly. Unless something dramatic happens, Nashville likely won't be anywhere near the top in just a few years.
Sure, I completely understand the principle of percentages versus scale.
I was really responding to more specific comments regarding Nashville or Austin not producing the sheer number of units as larger, more urban metros. And as Boston Shudra cited, that's just not the case--they have both large percentages and large absolute numbers that compare to much larger more established metro areas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boston Shudra
Can you explain more about the Philly tax abatement thing? I don't really understand.
No problem. Basically, Philly has a long-standing tax abatement program for newly-constructed homes to encourage development/investment/homeownership, in that new homeowners are exempt from paying any property taxes for a decade.
As of the start of 2022, the abatement program is being phased out gradually because Philadelphia arguably has long-passed the need to encourage market rate development. So building permits issued after January 1st have a reduced tax abatement (90% instead of 100%, and 2023 will be 80%, so on and so forth).
Needless to say, it caused a huge rush by developers/property owners to get permits in-hand for proposed projects before the full value of abatement is no longer possible for new homes. What remains to be seen is how many permits are translated into actual construction before those permits expire (although there is a not insignificant financial cost to securing permits for larger developments, so time will tell).
Not that I disagree, but that's only "insignificant" in C-D logic. In real-world logic, it makes far more sense to know the total numbers and percentage increases in order to gauge where people are moving and where jobs are increasing. How many are being built per square mile isn't a generally useful number.
Calculations need to be apples to apples. If you tell me Atlanta added X amount of apartments in their MSA, why wouldn't you compare that to the same land area in another city? A perfect example is that Atlanta's MSA is about the same size as the DC/Baltimore CSA.
So, if you're going to count all the apartments miles and miles from each other across the Atlanta MSA, wouldn't you need to count the apartments miles and miles from each other over the same land area in the DC/Baltimore CSA? That would be apples to apples.
Last edited by MDAllstar; 01-23-2022 at 01:18 AM..
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