Atlanta: Largest multifamily starts in core metro

[Guest donaltopablo]

These numbers absolutely blow me away. Nearly 3200 just apartment units started in the city of Atlanta is very impressive for a city that lost people for years.

City starts lion's share of apartment units

The city of Atlanta is seeing the most new apartment starts of the metro area.

During the first three quarters of 2003, 3,192 new apartment unit starts were in the city of Atlanta, or 63.9 percent of the 4,993 nine-county total.

"This is the greatest share of the nine-county apartment market for the city since records have been kept for the past 34 years," said Dale Henson, president of Dale Henson Associates Inc., an Atlanta-based multifamily market advisory firm. The city's share of apartment starts was just 14 percent in 1999 and almost 32 percent in 2002, he said.

Tax-assisted programs, many of which are not available in the outlying counties and municipalities, have inspired much of the city's apartment growth, Henson's research showed.

Of the 3,192 apartment units that began construction in the city of Atlanta in the first three quarters of this year, more than 53 percent were tax assisted. In the nine-county metro area, which includes the city of Atlanta, more than 46 percent of the 4,993 units that started construction this year were tax assisted.

[tocoto]

It sounds like a lot of apartments, but at 2 people per apartment it's only ~8000 people. They must be building huge numbers of condos and single family houses to keep up with the influx into the metro.

[Guest donaltopablo]

Well keep in mind, this was only 9 of the 20 some odd counties in metro Atlanta. But Ihave a feeling apartment construction isn't very high elsewhere for two main reasons:

1. Home ownership is so easy right now

2. Apartments were considerably over built at the end of the 90s anyway.

I think the important thing is this is significant not for the metro area, but just the city itself. The fact that it is 5000-8000 new residents in the city, not including condos and homes.