Keeping up to date on the Apartment Market

For about a year Marcus and Millichap has been hosting on-line apartment outlook meetings.  These  have occurred about every quarter.  Listening to these is probably one of the better ways to keep up on the happenings in the multifamily marketplace. 

I listened to the most recent web meeting earlier this week and below is the link to the replay of the meeting.   If the link does not work just go to the research section of the mm web site.  You will have to register for the call, but its free.   You may also want to register for their research site because there is a lot of useful additional information.

2010 Apartment Market Outlook and Investment Strategies Webcast, presented by Marcus & Millichap

I won’t repeat the call, but will say that I am in general agreement with their comments on the capital markets.   The agency lenders are supporting the market, but local banks are still there doing deals, Life Companies are starting to come back and Conduits starting to reemerge.

The most interesting comments related to cap rates.   Given the size of their brokerage business you have to believe they have a good handle on values and cap rates.  They say cap rates have stabilized and started to drop on class A deals and top markets while they are still high on class C deals and tertiary markets.  This makes sense given there is plenty of capital to finance  properties in top markets and class A deals while there is little ability to finance deals in tertiary markets.