Tarnished Gold? California renters don’t sound happy. The statistic sticks out like a C-minus on an A-student’s report card. While California homeowners are delighted with their houses (75 percent report being “very satisfied”), far fewer renters (34 percent) feel the same about their apartments, according to the findings of a statewide survey conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California.
But Michael Hayde, CEO of Western National Group in Irvine, Calif., sees more than simple customer satisfaction at work. “If only 34 percent of our residents were happy, it seems like it would have a financial impact. We’re not seeing that,” says Hayde, whose company owns and manages 20,000 apartments in Southern California.
Instead, Hayde sees another force at work: homeownership and real estate appreciation. “We’re still in a rising market, so homeowners are really happy because of the appreciation they’re seeing,” he notes. “Renters, conversely, are frustrated with the process. … When they look over the fence, it seems to them like they’re not getting a lot of bang for the buck. But rents are one heck of a buy compared to where we’ve been in the business.”
Renters do acknowledge that their monthly housing costs have been relatively stable; 38 percent say their rent has stayed about the same in the past few years, according to the survey findings.
Job Search Companies aren’t hiring enough new workers. Forget lucky number seven. What the country needs right now is a magic 150,000. Why? That’s the number of jobs the American economy needs to produce each month to keep up with the growing labor force—and it’s not happening, as the chart above shows. Instead, the monthly employment numbers have drifted above and below 150,000, a level that hardly represents the type of ongoing job creation that apartment firms want. “It’s just been a very difficult time,” says Mark Obrinsky, chief economist for the NMHC.
It also represents a change from past recession recoveries. “When we were looking at apartments in the 1990s, it was always a given that yearly job growth would be 2 percent,” says David Schwartz, managing member of Waterton Associates, a Chicago-based multifamily owner and manager. “This time, it’s been half that. It’s definitely had an impact on the recovery of the multifamily industry.”
Even if the job numbers do improve, both Schwartz and Obrinsky suggest those stats won’t translate into higher apartment rents and occupancies for awhile. “It’s not just about people having jobs,” the economist says, “but people having a better feeling about the economy.”