By james art Over the past two years, landlords across the country have struggled with a wave of new housing, thanks to the biggest housing boom in four decades. Now the market is starting to stabilize, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The vacancy rate stopped rising for the first time in three years in the latest quarter as demand for apartments rose to its highest levels since 2021, according to CoStar. More than 1.2 million new housing units built in the past two years appear to be filling up.
About 672,000 new housing units will be completed by the end of this year, but only about half of that number is expected in 2025 and even fewer in 2026, CoStar said.
The Capital Region is in the midst of an apartment boom. In a report earlier this year prepared for the commercial investment division of the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors and the Baton Rouge Apartment Association, the researchers note that a historically significant number of new housing units currently under construction are expected to hit the market by the end of 2024 and through 2025 with even more units planned.
From 2015 to 2024, a total of 13,930 units were built or currently under construction in the Capital Region, which the researchers say equates to 1,393 units per year. That pace is roughly 60 percent higher than in the previous decade, according to the report, which includes the post-Katrina construction boom.
The report warns that apartment owners and managers must continue to prepare for competition as these new units compete for tenants.
Read the full national story from The Wall Street Journal. Read the Capital Region Trends story at Business report.