Austin apartment market sees first rent drop in 10 years

[Stephen Stokes]

I see a lot of folks looking through rosy-eyed glasses lately. When the all the stimulus, forbearance, eviction moratorium, etc. goes away, reality takes hold. My market opinion has been an unpopular one but I still contend you can only kick the can down the road so far.

https://www.statesman.com/business/20200818/amid-outbreak-austin-apartment-market-sees-first-rent-drop-in-10-years

[Nina Hayden]

Two paragraphs that stand out to me and that I agree with:  

‘Rieder said he foresees declines in apartment rents and occupancy rates in the short term, but has a positive outlook for the future.

“We can’t go from roughly 2% unemployment to over 11% today without it adversely affecting the rental market,” Rieder said. “However, Austin remains an attractive market for both lifestyle and employment and we are still very bullish on Austin over the long term.”’

Last, but not least, Texas (especially Austin and DFW) will continue to see a lot of migration.   It will also continue to attract many businesses relocating here as we are a very business friendly state while places like California and NYC will get hit hard.  

Oh, one final thing......they discussed A level properties....with interests rates as low as 2.65 I can see why someone renting in the high end apartment  will want to buy instead of rent!  Class B And especially C, rental demand will always be there with these jobs being created as we recover from Covid.  35,000+ metropolitans in the US and only 53 of those are positioned to stand strong amidst all this.  ATX and DFW are part of those 53.