The latest National Multifamily Housing Council COVID-19 Construction Survey finds a record 83 percent of multifamily developers reported construction delays, up significantly from the March survey which also set a record with 75 percent of respondents reporting delays.

All respondents reported cost increases for materials with lumber seeing the steepest price hike. On average, respondents experienced a 201 percent price increase in lumber costs over the past year.

July rent collection in affordable housing reached a low for 2020 at 76% of July 2019’s rates, according to findings from MRI Software.

It’s the first time that rent collection in the sector dipped below 80% this year, reveals the proptech firm.

However, rent collection in public housing saw a rebound from 78% of 2019’s rates in June to 98% in July, reports MRI Software, which recently compared data from more than 1.5 million affordable and public housing units from January to July this year and last year.

For the second weekly release of the its Rent Payment Tracker, the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) reported that 84% of renter households had made a full or partial rent payment for the month of April by April 12. Captured from April 6 to April 12, the data was based on over 11 million market-rate units supplied by the tracker’s contributors—Yardi, ResMan, RealPage, Entrata, and MRI Software.

By comparison, 91% of renters in the NMHC’s survey had made their March payments by the same date the previous month, and 90% had made their April 2019 payments by April 12 the previous year. The latest numbers show that April’s rent payment rate is 93% of March’s rent payment rate. Caitlin Walter, vice president of research at NMHC, noted that many properties’ payment schedules have been adjusted for April based on renters’ circumstances, including payment plan needs.

The share of apartment households that had paid their full rent by the fifth of the month fell from 81% in March to 69% in April.

The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) has introduced a new weekly data metric, the NMHC Rent Payment Tracker, to follow rent payment dates for 13.4 million housing units across the country. This metric arrives as COVID-19, shelter-in-place orders, and record unemployment are expected to make rent more difficult for some tenants.

In its first release, the Rent Payment Tracker has found a 12 percentage point decrease in the share of apartment households that paid rent through the first five days of the month for April. According to the tracker, 81% of renter households had paid their rent in full by March 5. By April 5, only 69% of households had paid their full rent—down 13% year over year from April 5, 2019, when 82% of households had paid their rent in full.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) unveiled a revised cap structure on the multifamily businesses of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac today.

The new multifamily loan purchase caps will be increased to $100 billion for each government-sponsored enterprise (GSE), a combined total of $200 billion in support to the multifamily market, for the five-quarter period Q4 2019 to Q4 2020.

In a change from the prior structure, the new caps apply to all multifamily business, and there are no exclusions.

“Multifamily housing is a critical component of addressing our nation's shortage of affordable housing," said FHFA director Mark Calabria in a statement. “These new multifamily caps eliminate loopholes, provide ample support for the market without crowding out private capital, and significantly increase affordable housing support over previous levels. The enterprises should also manage under the caps to provide consistent, stable liquidity to the market throughout the entire five-quarter period."

The FHFA is directing that at least 37.5% of the GSEs’ multifamily business be "mission-driven affordable housing."

The United States is facing an affordable housing crisis.

Nearly two-thirds of renters nationwide say they can’t afford to buy a home, and saving for that down payment isn’t going to get easier anytime soon: Home prices are rising at twice the rate of wage growth. According to research from the advocacy group Home1, 11 million Americans (roughly the population of New York City and Chicago combined) spend more than half their paycheck on rent. Harvard researchers found that in 2016, nearly half of renters were cost-burdened (defined as spending 30 percent or more of their income on rent), compared with 20 percent in 1960.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition found that a renter working 40 hours a week and earning minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom apartment (i.e., not be cost-burdened) in exactly zero counties nationwide. In other words, it isn’t possible.

The strong supply growth in most major markets is just another confirmation that multifamily construction financing is still a competitive environment. Underpinned by a variety of factors—such as availability of capital and a growing interest for urban core development—capital costs have started decreasing. Jonathan Lee, principal & managing director of George Smith Partners, provides more explanations for the drop and discusses what it will take to trigger a serious economic slowdown that would crash the market.

By now, everyone in real estate, and likely the country, has heard that Amazon will no longer be opening its second headquarters in Queens, N.Y. Although it would have been an office deal, the existence of a second headquarters here would have been a huge boon for the New York City residential market. The reasoning behind why the deal fell through can teach us some valuable lessons about the residential markets in major cities across the United States and how the landscape looks vastly different than it did even 10 years ago.

Freddie Mac’s re-entry in LIHTC funding signals new opportunity for an underserved market.

The employers and workforce population of Summit County, Colo., breathe a little easier these days.

On the morning of Aug. 15, ground was broken for the Village at Wintergreen, 196-unit apartment community that features a major workforce housing component.

Wintergreen includes 40 units dedicated to workers earning at 30 to 60% of the AMI. Another 36 units are master-leased to Vail Resorts, a project partner who made the building site available without a costly acquisition. The remaining 120 units are capped to a rental rate set at 100% of the AMI.

The fact that the developer, Madison, Wis.-based Gorman & Co., could make a predominantly workforce project pencil-out is no small feat.

Just ask Gorman’s president and CEO, Brian Swanton. “There are a lot of tools and resources to target households below 60% t of the area median income (AMI). There isn’t a tax credit targeting households at 60 to 120% AMI, yet many of those households struggle to pay the rent. It’s difficult for the rent structure for workforce housing to support an investor return,” explains Swanton. “It’s tough to make the numbers work.”

California’s housing market has become so unaffordable that in 2018, the homeless population jumped 13.7% in one year.

As more and more Californians suffer from rising mortgage and interest rates, legislators have introduced many proposals to tackle the housing crisis.

This November, Californians will have the chance to vote for propositions that could bring $6 billion to affordable housing statewide, according to an article from The Mercury News. 

While the market has softened slightly, there is still ample reason to believe the industry will continue to experience healthy operating fundamentals throughout the rest of 2018 and beyond. Here are four reasons why.

A good home provides more than shelter. A good home offers comfort, dignity, and the foundation for a good life.  Affordable homes that are safe and well-maintained lower stress and bolster health. They reduce transiency, enabling children to perform better in school, adults to retain jobs, and neighbors to feel connected and safe. An affordable, quality home is one of the fundamentals of an equitable society.

When affordable rental housing is enriched with services – from wellness programs to GED classes to after-school and summer programs for kids – the benefits are often even greater. 

Those in need of primary care are more likely to receive it, preventing costly emergency room visits. Home services for seniors allow them to age in place, and at far less expense than a nursing home.  Kids get educational supports, better nutrition and a safe place to live – reducing their stress and supporting their future potential.  Quality housing and services  improve lives and benefit taxpayers and society.

In late 2013, with support from the Kresge Foundation, Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future (SAHF) launched an initiative to begin collecting data on the impact of service-enriched affordable housing from its members, all multi-state affordable housing providers working to improve the health, education, economic mobility and well-being of their residents.  Providing stronger data to policy makers and investors on the benefits of service-enriched housing is key to increasing the funding available to support it.

The American Institute of Architects reported on Wednesday that its Architecture Billings Index score for April was 52.0, which reflects a healthy business environment for architects and (somewhat later) developers, and even represents a modest uptick compared with March, when the index stood at 51.0. In short, architects are still busy.

The index is a leading economic indicator of commercial and residential construction activity, with nine to 12 months lead time between architecture billings and construction spending. The index thus predicts U.S. construction spending growth, though not always in each property sector.

The National Multifamily Housing Council's authoritative ranking of the nation's Top 50 Apartment Owners and Top 50 Managers as well as the Top 25 Developers, Top 25 Builders and Top 10 Syndicators.

D.C.'s rising cost of living has pushed the issue of affordable housing to the forefront among residents and elected officials, and now some developers who have typically only played in the market-rate space are diving into affordable housing. 

Read more at: https://www.bisnow.com/washington-dc/news/affordable-housing/why-market-rate-developers-in-dc-are-shifting-toward-affordable-housing-85805?utm_source=CopyShare&utm_medium=Browser

For years, multifamily has been the preferred bet for agnostic commercial real estate investors. But bulwarked by the continued rise of e-commerce and changes among manufacturers and retailers to optimize supply chain management, the industrial sector is giving multifamily a run for its money.

The sentiment is based on exclusive research gathered as part of NREI’s fourth annual survey of the industrial real estate sector. Whether it comes to occupancy rates, rents or even cap rates, sentiment has improved from a year ago. In addition, fewer respondents are worried about the potential for overdevelopment, with a substantial minority worried that, in fact, too little new construction is taking place. And the percent of respondents saying they were looking to buy industrial real estate (vs. holding or selling) also increased.

2017 has been a year of ups and downs as well as a lot of uncertainty for the affordable housing industry.

Affordable Housing Finance, with help from its Editorial Advisory Board members, takes a look at 10 notable news events for the industry from the past year.