by Christine Serlin

The Atlanta rental market is expected to remain strong due to a healthy economy, a lower cost of living, good demographic trends, and positive rent growth, according to a midyear multifamily report for the metro from Berkadia. 

Multifamily starts have increased since the beginning of the pandemic due to recent strong demand. More than 26,000 units have been added since the beginning of 2020, with delivery of 4,500 units in the first half of this year. In all, 11,752 units are expected to be delivered in 2022, with another 20,385 deliveries projected for 2023. According to Berkadia, leasing activity hasn’t kept pace with the deliveries in the first half of the year, with the market seeing a drop in occupancy. However, the current occupancy rate of 95.7% is higher than the pre-pandemic average of 94.5% in 2019’s fourth quarter. 

While Berkadia predicts that occupancy will decrease in the second half of the year as more units are delivered, it says this is not expected to deter operators from continuing to raise rents because of the strong fundamentals. Effective rents were up 3.9% to $1,662 year to date in the second quarter, or 17.5% year over year. 

Read Christine Serlin’s article in Multifamily Executive.