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 Urban Core submarkets of Columbus experienced a COVID shock with declining rents and declining occupancies in higher density markets. Suburban markets experienced both occupancy increases and rent growth as demand for more spacious floorplans and amenities has soared through COVID.
South Columbus and Southwest Columbus experienced the strongest rent growth as affordable housing remains in high demand due to economic uncertainty and cost-conscious renters. On the other hand, discretionary renters fled to many of the Northern submarkets seeking highly amenitized work from home arrangements as downtown political and pandemic risk remain present.
Economic and Capital Market Trends
Ohio’s economic rebound has posted stronger employment recovery trends, largely driven by a booming industrial sector and large biomedical presences. Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland currently have lower unemployment rates than the U.S. average at 4.9%, 4.8% and 5.8% respectively, outpacing the U.S. 6.7% rate.
Total transactional volume in Columbus, OH declined -32.6% YOY due to the economic uncertainty but also a shift to refinance to take advantage of the historically low interest rate environment. The Multifamily sector experienced strong liquidity resiliency as total Commercial Property transaction volume declined -57% through November 2020.
2021 loan purchase caps for Fannie and Freddie total a combined $140 billion to support the multifamily market with a strong focus on affordable housing. At least 50% of the Enterprises multifamily loans are required to be mission-driven affordable housing, up from 37.5% in 2020.
Multifamily Cap Rates in Columbus experienced YOY compression of roughly 10 bps in Q4’20. Although transaction volume YOY dropped overall, Q4’20 YOY transaction volume on individual properties increased by 8.8% due to many final pushes to close year-end deals.
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