By Danielle DiMartino. Originally published at ValueWalk.
While exceptional exceptions exist, history’s shown superb sitcom sequels to be scant.
With any luck, you’ve long since forgotten the abysmal attempts of “AfterMASH,” “The Brady Brides,” “The Love Boat: The Next Wave,” and possibly the worst of the bunch, “Jonie Loves Chachi.” These small screen sideshows failed to give us Good Times, nor did they endear us to characters we still hold dear – Benson, Frasier, Laverne, Shirley, Maude, Mork and the lovely Mindy.
These disastrous debacles did anything but invite us to sing along to their opening songs. There was no, Movin’ on Up to the east side, to a deluxe apartment in the sky. Ah, The Jeffersons, which premiered in 1975 and ran for 11 seasons. Rolling Stone Magazine ranked it the fifth-best TV spin-off of all time. Think of it as the gift that All in the Family kept giving as only the brilliant creator of both George and Archie, Norman Lear, could deliver.
The beauty of The Jeffersons was the ease with which its characters elicited laughter. No longer was it 1971, when Archie Bunker’s angry sarcasm resonated so clearly with American viewers, whose own tempers were still flaring from the searing ‘60s. By 1975, we were all in the need of George Jefferson’s victory walk across the screen and the derision it elicited from Florence, the housekeeper who gave new meaning to cynically caustic comebacks.
It’s worth asking how valid the premise of The Jeffersons would be today. What are the odds a successful, entrepreneurial dry cleaner from Queens could pull up stakes and relocate to a luxury apartment at 185 East 85th Street in the Park Lane Towers? You tell me: units are available in the building with monthly rents starting at a cool $18,200.
Granted, this is an extreme example. According to Axiometrics, the national average annual rental rate is $1,304. While that figure is a record in dollar terms, there is much better news in the underlying trend of rental inflation. In May, effective annual rent growth rate was 2.2-percent, a level that’s held steady for the past six months. Critically, the rate has more than halved since its record pace of 5.2-percent was clocked in September 2015.
Chances are we will see a continued leveling off in rental inflation. Apartment construction is running at its highest level in at least 25 years. Nearly 600,000 units are currently under construction nationwide. Deliveries are forecast to be 102,000 in the third and fourth quarters, up appreciably from the average 82,000 per quarter in 2016 and early 2017. Looking out over the horizon, one million units will hit the market in the next three years.
This should be welcome news for renters. (Do you sense a however coming your way?) However, the vast majority of new construction in recent years has been in luxury units. That helps explain why half of would-be renters cannot afford to set out on their own – that $1,300-plus monthly pill is too big to swallow based on the affordability standard of 30 percent of income.
That’s assuming, mind you, you draw a decent salary. According to a recent report detailed in the Washington Post, no city in America has low enough rents on two-bedroom apartments for someone earning minimum wage to call home. All of 12 counties nationwide boast rents low enough for minimum-wage earners to let, that is if they can confine their belongings into a one-bedroom unit.
If you thought location mattered most when it came to buying, think again; it’s an even more critical determinant of rents. The minimum hourly wage you’d need to afford to rent in some counties in Georgia is $11.46. Meanwhile, across the country in the San Francisco Bay Area, you’d need to be raking in $58.04 an hour. Good luck with that commute teachers and nurses!
The report went on to say that things have only gotten worse since the Great Financial Crisis. In the eight years through 2015, average inflation-adjusted apartment rents rose by six percent while that of real wages fell by four percent. The upshot: some 11.2 million US households spend over half their income just to put a roof over their heads.
As big as that ‘however’ was, there’s an even bigger caveat that follows: Demographics suggest demand for apartments will only continue to increase in the coming years. Some 4.6 million MORE apartments will need to come online between now and 2030. That’s according to a fresh study jointly commissioned by the National Multifamily Housing Council and the National Apartment Association (Caution: Always consider potential bias of source).
It’s helpful to provide some context. The 4.6-million-unit figure is not altogether shocking against the backdrop of the million new renter households that have formed in every single one of the last five years, a record run rate as coming-of-age Millennials competed with downsizing Baby Boomers for apartments.
The question comes down to whether this momentum can be sustained. Will we really see annual construction of at least 325,000 new apartments for the next 12 years to satisfy this forecasted demand? It’s highly doubtful. It would require the massive imbalance that’s favored apartments over single-family construction to persist, which we know won’t be the case as the homeownership rate appears to have finally bottomed and begun to recover.
More to the point, Baby Boomers’ vacated homes don’t magically vanish into thin air keeping supply and demand in some beautiful balance only a realtor’s imagination could conjure. Every one of their homes sold adds to the supply that’s been ‘depleted’ in recent years by deep-pocketed private equity buyers who’ve swarmed markets from coast to coast to find a home for all that dry powder in their kegs.
Let’s be clear, Boomers have clearly indicated they’d prefer to sit tight, to age in their home sweet homes. Buy Home Depot stock and call it a day? That tall ‘buy’ order requires suspended animation, as in the presumption that recession will be held at bay indefinitely.
The reality of Boomer home sales won’t come into full view until we’re bearing the brunt of the next downturn. That cataclysmic catalyst will kill the optionality of aging in home. Millions of retirees on fixed incomes will buckle under the strain of their deflating retirement savings and skyrocketing property taxes, forced up to stem the bleed of underfunded pensions, which will also blow up at the intersection of Demographics and Recession Boulevards.
Wait. Go back to that part about private equity and their massive inventories of also-aging single-family rentals. Rest assured, these fly boys are not in it for the long haul despite what their propaganda purports. It’s just not in their DNA. Yes, the single-family-rental business is established. Heck, they’ve got bonds backed by these investment-cum-income properties that trade in the secondary market.
That’s all good and well until surging supply corrodes the collateral backing those securities. At that point, the big boys will do what they do best at the first whiff of a sell signal. They’ll hit the bid and hit it again to liquidate their portfolios ahead
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