Last year, developers in the U.S. completed 211,000 new housing units in buildings of 50 units or more, the biggest number on record. The total number of new apartments constructed didn’t come close to setting any records, though.

These numbers are from Characteristics of New Housing, an annual Census Bureau data release that is so chock-full of interesting information (for example: 88% of apartments completed in 2018 had in-unit laundry facilities) that I briefly contemplated interrupting my vacation to write about it when it came out two weeks ago. I resisted then, but now I’m back at my desk and the new numbers don’t seem to have gotten much attention. They should!

By Kerry Curry

With late 2018 jitters gone and investor optimism returning, the commercial real estate market should experience mostly steady cap rates through the first half of 2019, although there are particular market segments and geographies that could experience some bumps.

By Tim Wang and Julia Laumont

A major and unprecedented structural shift has occurred in the real estate market due to a variety of demographic and socioeconomic factors. Occupied U.S. rental apartment units rose by 20 percent above the prior 10-year period. Real estate investment managers’ allocations to institutional-quality multifamily product have risen on the ongoing strength in property fundamentals.

By Adam Descanctis

Steady commercial real estate markets, along with equity and debt availability, are expected to keep commercial and multifamily mortgage originations roughly on par with the volumes seen the past two years, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's 2019 Commercial/Multifamily Real Estate Finance Forecast, released here today at the 2019 Commercial Real Estate Finance/Multifamily Housing Convention & Expo.

By Andrea Riquier

Commercial real estate in large urban areas will be the big winner from the tax scheme aimed at boosting investment in needy areas, according to an analysis released in November.

Strong market conditions helped fuel a 6 percent increase in multifamily lending in 2017 as lenders provided a record high $285 billion in new mortgages for apartment buildings with five or more units, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported today.

"The multifamily lending market in 2017 benefited from improving fundamentals, rising property values and low interest rates," said MBA Vice President of Commercial Real Estate Research Jamie Woodwell. "The result was larger loan sizes and record levels of overall borrowing and lending."

Confidence in the multifamily housing market edged down in the second quarter of 2018, according to the Multifamily Production Index (MPI) released today by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). The MPI dipped two points to 51 compared to the previous quarter.

The MPI measures builder and developer sentiment about current conditions in the apartment and condo market on a scale of 0 to 100. The index and all of its components are scaled so that a number above 50 indicates that more respondents report conditions are improving than report conditions are getting worse.