Following are some stats and storylines from the business world:
• Multifamily housing construction permits jumped by 32 percent in November, according to a report from the U.S. Commerce Department issued Dec. 21.
Adding to a trend, this boosted requests for permits to build apartments with five or more units to 80 percent in 2011.
• Hope this doesn’t jinx the Sunshine State: Florida has now gone six straight seasons without a hurricane landfall.
• A national survey by staffing agency Manpower Group released in mid-December about hiring trends for Q1 2012 showed that an impressive 9 percent of companies say they would be hiring.
Manpower asked a total of 18,000 U.S. employers of various sizes about their
Q1 hiring plans and 14 percent said that they will add staff. Nine percent said they expect to cut employees. The others saw either no change or were undecided, resulting in a 5 percent net increase in the employment outlook. Seasonal
variations removed, Manpower calculated a 9 percent net increase in the outlook, the most positive number in over a year. Hospitality (16 percent) and leisure
(14 percent) firms topped the list with the greatest intent to hire.
• Student Housing leases, designed specifically to serve the unique needs of student housing apartment residents in Florida, Texas, Alabama and Tennessee. The leases are a product of the NAA National Lease Program, which works with Blue Moon software. Contact NAA’s Michael Semko at 703/518-6141 ext. 111.
• After painful adjustments from the 2008-2010 economic slump, the Phoenix market is improving, according to RealFacts’ apartment data in a release Dec. 19. Phoenix’s year-to-date job figures rank 12th out of 32 cities with more than
1 million jobs. When comparing year-over-year job growth, Phoenix ranked fourth out of 32 cities, signaling strong relative performance compared to other major metropolitan areas. As of Q3 2011, the average asking rent in Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale reached $734. Rents are up 0.2 percent from a year ago, which follows two years of negative rent growth.
• The Richmond apartment sector was rallying as the year ended, according to MPF Research, a RealPage Company. The metro’s Q3 occupancy rate was 94.3 percent, a little below the national norm, but still considerably above rates that had hovered slightly under 93 percent during 2011’s initial six months. Occupancy now is at roughly 96 percent in communities from the 2000s and 1990s. Effective rents there for new leases climbed 4.5 percent between Q3 2010 and Q3 2011, after a 2 percent to 3 percent hike in the first half of the year.