After two decades of steady, hold ’em and grow ’em portfolio expansion, Kirkland, Wash.–based Weidner Apartment Homes is emblematic of the emerging multifamily power player: highly localized, well capitalized, and steadfast with market strategies both maverick and mundane. 2017 will see Weidner leaving Denver, loving OKC, and gobbling up more Class A properties and tertiary assets to complement its long-hold portfolio of Class B assets across the West.
A similar work ethic and business model are budding across the NMHC 50 managers, the NMHC 25 developers and NMHC 25 GCs, and the NMHC 10 tax credit syndicators, rankings produced by the trade group—along with the NMHC 50 owners—in partnership with Kingsley Associates.
With apartment demand expected to outpace supply for the foreseeable future, developers are in the profitability hot seat but have been forced to remain nimble and ally themselves with established GCs who can ensure access to a dwindling labor pool. Property managers, meanwhile, must differentiate properties both old and new from the latest, greatest community coming on line, and likewise are monitoring starts and transaction activity that often fuel their own portfolio growth.
And in almost all markets, revenues keep rising. Not meteorically, but nicely, positioning multifamily as an investor stronghold even as housing affordability remains a gathering storm on the horizon. It’s both an opportunistic and challenging time to be in the business. Read on for an in-depth look at where the top players are making claim to the space.
