Economist praises investors interested in N.C. apartment buildings

A report released this week by research firm Costar Group highlights a growing trend that local real estate companies are already tapping.

Apartment complexes have attracted a lot of attention lately thanks to promising demographics and available financing. While financing for office and retail buildings has largely dried up, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are still loaning money to investors and developers interested in multifamily buildings.

Titled "The Coming Rental House Wave," Costar's report talks about how the apartment market has become one of the real estate industry's - and the overall economy's - "best hopes for a return for the good old days, with robust property values attracting keen investor interest."

And Costar senior real estate economist Erica Champion applauds those interested in the Tar Heel state.

"Investors and developers that have been in love with North Carolina and Oregon can congratulate themselves for jumping on the right bandwagon," she wrote in the report.

Nationally, renters now make up more than 40 million households - or one-third of U.S. households, according to Costar and Freddie Mac.

During recent boom times, U.S. home ownership hit 69 percent. That's since fallen to 66 percent. Each 1 percent drop equates to one million new renters entering the market.

Locally, developers and investors have been active.

Last year, two new Charlotte apartment properties sold for premiums.

And a growing number of developers have found new footing developing, buying or managing multifamily properties.

Northwood Ravin LLC, for example, was formed last month by Ravin Partners and Northwood Investors to focus on multifamily properties in the Southeast. Ravin Partners was created by David Ravin, former multifamily president at Crosland, who bought Crosland's residential development and construction department earlier this year.

Northwood Ravin, which has 95 employees, is building a 200-unit complex in Richmond, Va., a 134-unit project in Raleigh and a 345-unit complex in Atlanta.

And in September, Charlotte-based developer Pappas Properties announced its plans to build multifamily housing in new markets in the Southeast.