Many Performance Metrics Holding Steady as Summer Comes to an End

Labor Day marked the unofficial end of summer. And what a summer it was for all of us!

On a national basis, multifamily data and metrics have been hovering around the same points since mid-summer.

When measured year over year, traffic has not yet fully recovered since the beginning of the pandemic, when it saw a massive 75% drop. 

But in the week ending on Sept. 6, we saw the biggest closing of that YoY gap since March. 

Interestingly, the leases per property metric was actually ahead of where it was when compared to one year ago. Since the middle of the summer, this metric has been basically the same or slightly ahead of where it was at the same point in 2019.

As we examine the remainder of the summer months, national occupancy and leased percentage rates were down anywhere between 0.1% and 1% YoY. However, broadly speaking, this was a better performance than was expected considering the impact the pandemic has had on every sector of the U.S. and global economies. 

Conversely, national net effective rent has been consistently down about 8% YoY, although certain individual markets have experienced steeper drops – particularly the coastal MSAs.

With the broader context in mind, here are some of the specific takeaways from the week that ended on Sept. 6:

• Nationally, traffic was down 0.4% WoW and 8.3% YoY. Leases were down 4.8% from the preceding week but up by 6.7% when compared to the same time last year.

• The national occupancy rate stood at 94.11%. That’s a decrease of 10 basis points from the week before and a drop of 50 basis points YoY.

• The national leased percentage was 95.23%, down 0.1% WoW and down 0.2% YoY.

• At $1,649, the national NER declined by 0.3% from the week before. The YoY decrease was 8.4%.