New Construction: Austin, Charlotte & New York

It is hard to draw any conclusions about new apartment construction trends on a national basis since there is such a mixed-bag of nonsense going on these days. Tax credit development has left a gaping hole in the national activity and while there are tons of folks who want to get some deals done it has been somewhat slow going in spite of strong fundamentals and long-term optimism for the rental market as a whole.

One state on everyone's radar seems to be Texas. Here is an interesting town just south of Austin that seems to be ramping up the activity.

Buda to get 1,000 apartments

Town has less than 10 apartments now
Austin Business Journal - by Kate Harrington ABJ Staff

"Ask Warren Ketteman, president of the Buda Economic Development Corp., how many apartments exist in the city, and his answer comes quickly -- fewer than 10.
But with five apartment complexes breaking ground or being planned, the small city 15 miles south of Austin could see close to 1,000 units in the next two years."

We also spotted nice activity outside of Charlotte, NC (Salisbury).

Campus draws more residential projects. Apartments become next development wave near Kannapolis

The N.C. Research Campus is spinning off its next wave of development — apartments built to support the expected influx of workers to Kannapolis. A Greensboro-area developer is the first to target research workers with a $23 million luxury apartment complex in Salisbury, 15 miles north of the bioscience center, which is expected to employ 5,000 workers by 2013."

Similarly, a recent AP release published on www.CNNmoney.com outlined the following national activity trends due to some favorable legislation in New York.

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- Construction of single-family homes fell in June to the slowest pace in 17 years although a change in New York laws helped give a big boost to apartment building.
The Commerce Department reported Thursday that construction of single-family homes dropped by 5.3% in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 647,000 units, the weakest performance since January 1991, another period when the housing industry was going through a severe downturn.
However, construction of multifamily units surged by 42.5% last month, thanks to a change in New York City building codes that spurred a wave of apartment construction in that area. Taken together, single and apartment construction rose by 9.1% to an annual rate of 1.066 million units. But the total increase was viewed as an aberration that did not give a true picture of the continued weak state for the housing industry because it was skewed by the huge jump in apartment building in New York."

So keep an eye out on the local activity and players who will be responsible for the next wave of growth in the market.