Written by: Cody Carey
As an associate within Colliers’ Multifamily Advisory Group, Cody Carey works with a team of professionals whose focus is middle-market properties across the country. He brings to the team a holistic perspective of building and maintaining relationships with clients and prospects because of his understanding that putting himself in their shoes is the key to a successful relationship. Cody is working to build Colliers’ multifamily business in Columbus, and works with a highly collaborative, integrated team that is building value for clients. Keep reading to get Cody’s take on the current state of the Columbus Multifamily market.
Columbus Multifamily Trends
The Downtown, and Arlington/Grandview apartment rental submarkets experienced year-over-year declines in occupancy +/-3 percent. The Downtown market has been affected by social unrest, desire for outdoor amenities, demand for larger floorplans with remote working and a 13.63 percent increase in existing supply. Partially attributable to the declines in occupancy reside within demand for single family homes as renting vs. owning is a competitive comparison within each of these submarkets.
The Southwestern submarket of Columbus experienced the fastest paced rent growth through Q1’21. Year-over-year rent growth topped all submarkets at 7 percent with three Class A development completions pushing top of the market rents.
The Columbus MSA has a strong development pipeline with about 4.5 percent of the existing supply currently under construction. Downtown and Hilliard/Dublin/Powell are the two fastest paced development pipelines.
Economic and Capital Market Trends
Apartment transaction volume in Columbus through Q1’21 has seen a year-over-year decline in transaction activity of -37.3 percent which is largely attributable to wait and see patterns through Q3’20. Q4’20 was an extremely active quarter comprising of over 45 percent of total transaction volume throughout 2020. Transaction activity is expected to increase as life slowly returns to normal.
Year-over-year cap rates through Q1’21 compressed 50 basis points to an average cap rate of 5.5 percent.
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