As the old adage goes, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Precisely what some of the nation’s home builders are doing. Faced with heavy competition from a hot rental market, they are turning some of their resources to building multi-family, rental apartment buildings.
Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100407898
Construction starts of multi-family housing in Calgary and area exceeded those of detached single-family homes in 2012 — something that has only happened three other times since 1980, says a federal agency.
Multi-family housing starts in the Calgary census metropolitan area soared to 6,880 in 2012, up 63 per cent from 4,208 starts in 2011, says Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/b5g7cyv
Apartment vacancy rates in the area at the end of 2012 moved lower than most Alberta rental markets.
The average vacancy rate for privately-initiated rental apartments in Alberta’s urban centres declined to two per cent at the end of 2012, compared to 3.4 per cent in 2011, according to Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/bznb5gv
A strong recovery in single-family homes may spell bad news for apartment companies that reaped big profits over the last few years by renting to displaced homeowners, Fitch Ratings says in a new report.
The ratings agency says that an improving housing market could weigh on rent growth for multifamily real-estate investment trusts. Fitch estimates that 80% of the growth in apartment demand between 2009 and 2011 was derived from declining homeownership.
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/d9n3lj5
Real estate investment trusts have been hot in recent years as yield-hungry investors chase these securities for their healthy dividends.
But higher-net-worth individuals can also invest in private REITs, which similarly own properties ranging from apartments to shopping malls, and may even provide a higher yield than their public peers.
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/cu2vxg2
A Chinese company listed on the New York Stock Exchange is beginning to develop residential property in the U.S., hoping to tap into the hot demand among Chinese investors for U.S. apartments.
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/bp8cnqk
I rented my first apartment during my second year of university when I lived off-campus with four other girls in an old house in London, Ont.
Part way through the year, strange sounds in the night revealed a family of raccoons living in our floor boards. Our landlord called in an animal control expert to get rid of them – but not before they gave us fleas.
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/95rhxz9