SPECIAL FOCUS: AFT’s Top 50
Apartment Markets
APARTMENT FINANCE TODAY • OCTOBER 2007
NO. 17 • BALTIMORE: Iron Market
By Dana Enfinger
The apartment market in Baltimore
is turning out to be as consistent
as “Iron Man” shortstop Cal
Ripken Jr., who played a record
2,632 straight games for the city’s
Orioles. Now that’s pretty consistent.
But the city wasn’t always
that way.
“Before 1999, we had about
4,400 units in downtown
Baltimore. We were in a serious
slump,” said Robert Ayudkovic,
vice president of Baltimore’s nonprofit
Downtown Partnership.
“Since then, we have doubled
what we had: 8,000 units now.
Some places have waiting lists. A
lot of housing has been added to
the downtown market, and the
outer markets are starting to
emerge.”
The Baltimore market finished 17th in
our Top 50 Apartment Markets analysis,
thanks to solid rent growth and low
annual inventory growth—the fourth-lowest
out of 83 markets we examined.
Baltimore has captured the attention
of developers. The city proper is home to
almost 70 percent of the area’s apartment
units currently being built and nearly
a third of all planned units, reports
Marcus & Millichap. Still, restrained construction
and an increasingly
pricey for-sale market should persuade
apartment investors to get
in the game.
The Baltimore region will add
tens of thousands of jobs in the
coming years, thanks to the federal
government’s base realignment
and closure (BRAC) work. Four
Baltimore-area military installations
will see major expansions.
“With the [BRAC] and the
expansion of biotechnology and
the health care sector, the area
within a 30-mile radius is looking
at 60,000 new positions,” said
Ayudkovic.
For this eastern seaboard city, that
means it’s time to play ball.
|
