Does Madison need more apartments?

[r_k]

I think (but nor 100% sure) the units that replaced the Ivy Inn are apartments, and the ones on Midvale are condos (assuming you mean the ones in the Hilldale parking lot.)

[amysherman]

From a Realtors perspective (and someone who does rental tours for my company's relocation department.
The rental market is very tight. We need more apartments.
You can't rehab the apartments that already exsist without driving up the price and then you will have families that cannot afford to live in the apartments any more.
You can't turn condos into apartments (even though we do have more than a year of condo inventory, which is horrible news if you are trying sell your condo). The banks wouldn't allow it and the owners of the condos wouldn't allow it. It's just not a realistic solution. If more than a certain percentage of condos in a development are rentals the banks will not lend to someone who wants to buy a condo in the development.
Many of the developments don't even have all of their condos listed. If they did you would see how bad the condo market really is right now (the high rises are in the worst shape).
But to get back to the original point, we do need more apartments in Madison and if I were going to invest some money (if I had some) I would put it into rental properties. As was stated earlier, the occupancy rate is extremely high, rents are going up and there are more people who are in the rental market than there has been for decades (mostly due to the poor housing market).