New Build Apartment mix...

[Kevin Borland]

I am working towards scraping a duplex I own and building a multi-story building with approx 10-12 units. My question, and my first BP question, is, what mix would you do?

It is close-in to the downtown core, above average rents, can bike into the core easily, or grab the light rail for a 5 min trip, etc. Most of the new buildings going up in the market area are studios and 1 br's with a some 2 br's. Having owned and managed mostly small plexes and SFR over 30+ yrs I have never owned a studio or 1 br units. I am also a RE Broker of 23 years and suffer from the bias of home buyers in our area always wanting the cookie cutter 3br/2ba. Of course the renter in the core area is different, which I get and I am just trying to figure out what kind of a mix to do.

From my exploration of multi family, investors have some strong opinions (shocking) about their mix preferences. Things I have heard ... 

*studios: tenants are more mobile and move more often, get married, kids, etc. 

*1 br: first units to go empty when the economy tanks into recession because the tenant can't team up with friend to handle rent. 

I was leaning towards all 1-br's (younger professional tenant, who maybe bikes to work, and doesn't own a car. This is in Portlandia, where the young go to retire) but after reading some of this, I thought i would reach out to this community for their real world experience.