Bay State Apartment Owner 4Q 2015 by The Warren Group

FOURTH QUARTER 2015

Emerging

‘Micro-Apartment’ Sector Already Attracting Suppliers

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FOURTH QUARTER 2015

Emerging

‘Micro-Apartment’ Sector Already Attracting Suppliers

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RHA Officers President: President Elect: Vice-President: Secretary: Executive Director:

Gilbert Winn Sarah Mathewson Mark R. Epker Kathleen Franco John E. Lafferty

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08 CONTENTS

President’s Message

Executive Director’s Message

RHA Calendar

Photo Gallery

Apartments Strengthen the Economy Looking Ahead to a Busy Year

FEATURES

Emerging ‘Micro-Apartment’ Sector Already Attracting Suppliers

Lux Apartments Fetching Unheard-Of Prices

President’s Message BY GILBERT WINN

Apartments Strengthen the Economy

f you have not already done so, take a moment and visit the RHA website, www.gbreb. com/rha, and click on “Apartments – We Live Here – Massachusetts.” Here you will learn how apartments and their residents strengthen the state’s economy. Did you know that there are 802,400 apartment residents occupying 464,800 apartment homes in Massachusetts; 70 percent of our apartments were built prior to 1979; and 54 percent of renters live in a

single-person household? Managing apartment homes in Massachusetts is a $1.8 billionindustry, supporting 11,607 direct on-site jobs. More than $1.4 billion is spent on construction, providing 6,545 direct jobs. This, and much more information, is made available through the National Apartment Association’s and National Multifamily Housing Council’s “We Are Apartments” campaign. Nationally, apartments and their residents contribute $1.3 trillion annually to the economy. With 77 billion Baby Boomers who might downsize, and 80 million Echo Boomers about to enter the housing mar-

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Fourth Quarter 2015

ket, Harvard research suggests that up to 5 million new renter households will form this decade, according the NAA/NMHC. As members of RHA, we will play a role in fulfilling the existing and future demand for quality rental housing. In many communities, market-rate housing brings with it an affordable housing requirement – a good tool to ensure all share in the rising market. In new construction, we are seeing this so-called “inclusionary zoning requirement” being fulfilled either on site or offsite through deposits into city reserves or selected sister developments. Such units provide for “middle income” living opportunities not otherwise economically feasible on their own. Government-assisted rental housing is creating opportunities in specialized markets, such as affordable veterans housing, with a social service delivery component. Municipalities are engaging developers in discussions on zoning changes and gap grant funding to facilitate development of housing, particularly for the workforce. The multifamily industry is strong and vibrant, making a significant economic contribution to the state and local communities. The demand for quality rental housing is strong and that demand is forecast to continue to grow. It is both a challenge and an opportunity for the industry to continue to meet the demand, across all sectors of housing; a challenge I am confident we will meet. n Gilbert Winn is chief executive officer of the WinnCompanies and 2015 president of the Rental Housing Association.

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Executive Director’s Message BY JOHN E. LAFFERTY

Looking Ahead to a Busy Year

HA members roll (or should I say roar) into 2016 with myriad education programs and events already scheduled and many subscribed. Whether you are looking for professional development, networking opportunities or just an informative good time, we will have it all here for you in 2016. We are looking forward to the “big three” events: The Affiliate Signature Summer Cookout, the RHA Fall Conference and Expo, and the RHA President’s Awards Reception; each event will draw in the hundreds of attendees. The August cookout, hosted by our affiliate members, is a family-oriented event immediately preceding a New England Revolution soccer match. In September, we are

treated to the insights offered up by nationally known speakers and will learn about the newest products and services from our exhibitors. In December, we will celebrate the recipients of the Industry Excellence and Excellence in Public Service awards. The 2016 calendar is rounded out with networking events, including Bruins and Red Sox games and our annual golf outing. The NextGen group will host informal get-togethers, a career panel and property tours. For 2016, our education committee has scheduled both the National Apartment Association Education Institute’s nationally recognized designation programs as well as locally focused education on landlord tenant issue, professional development and marketing. RHA’s programming is complemented by the world-class education and events offered

by the National Apartment Association (NAA). Over 9,000 industry leaders will come together at the 2016 NAA Education Conference and Exposition in San Francisco from June 15 to June 18. Those seeking to improve their skills in advocacy and meet with their elected representatives have just that opportunity at the Capitol Conference in Washington on March 8 and 9. Governance is at the forefront of NAA’s Assembly of Delegates, held in November. Rounding out the offerings are NAA’s Multifamily Asset Management Conference and the NAA Student Housing Conference and Exposition. We look forward to your continued support of RHA in 2016 and to seeing you at the outstanding education programs and events in 2016. n John Lafferty is the executive director of the Rental Housing Association.

RENTAL HOUSING ASSOCIATION 2015/16 EDUCTATION AND EVENTS

January 21, 2016 Rental Housing Association Outing – Boston Bruins

March 29-April 1, 2016 Certificate for Apartment Maintenance Technicians Designation (Session One)

January 25-28, 2016 Certified Apartment Portfolio Supervisor Designation

May 3-6, 2016 Certificate for Apartment Maintenance Technicians Designation (Session Two)

March 11-April 27, 2016 (Wednesdays only) Certified Apartment Manager Designation

May, 2016 Rental Housing Association Outing – Boston Red Sox

March 6 and 7, 2016 National Apartment Association Spring Governance Meeting March 8 and 9, 2016 National Apartment Association Capitol Conference

June, 2016 Rental Housing Association Golf Outing June 15-18, 2016 National Apartment Association Education Conference

July 2016 Rental Housing Association Affiliate’s Summer Cookout September 27, 2016 Rental Housing Association Fall Conference and Exposition November 12, 2016 National Apartment Association Assembly of Delegates December, 2016 Rental Housing Association’s President’s Awards Reception

For additional information, visit www.gbreb.com/rha 6

BAY STATE APARTMENT OWNER

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Fourth Quarter 2015

2015 Rental Housing Expo | Hynes Exposition Center | September 29, 2015

Fourth Quarter 2015 â&#x20AC;˘ BAY STATE APARTMENT OWNER

Emerging

‘Micro-Apartment’ Sector Already Attracting Suppliers

MULTIWALL SYSTEMS UNVEILS WALL CONSOLES FOR USE IN SMALL UNITS

BAY STATE APARTMENT OWNER

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Fourth Quarter 2015

PHOTOS BY LAURA ALIX

BY JAY FITZGERALD onstruction of modern “micro-apartments,” or super-small and sleek residential units designed mostly for young professionals, may be a relatively new phenomenon in Boston and elsewhere around the country. But it’s already producing a slew of new suppliers, especially furniture makers and dealers, that are quickly designing, building and distributing compact, multipurpose products designed to save space in increasingly small residential units within urban environments. From the Netherlands-based IKEA to the New York-based Resource Furniture, companies are pitching and selling everything from ready-to-assemble foot stools with storage bins to high-end wall beds costing more than $20,000. And then there’s smaller players – like Boston’s very own Multiwall Systems LLC, a new firm set to roll out the first model of its multifunctional wall consoles that can be used as office work stations, bookshelves, foyer tables or even bars for entertainment purposes. In all, Multiwall hopes to offer a number of different models for customers to choose from – with each model having slight variations that give them different functions, such as also acting as TV stands, room dividers and even pull-out storage drawers for golf clubs or bottles of wine. Continued on page 9 Fourth Quarter 2015 • BAY STATE APARTMENT OWNER

“Anything that enables renters to get more out of a small place is a plus,” she said. “In general, apartments are getting smaller and more efficient.” — Adelaide Grady, senior vice president, Pritzker Realty’

The consoles resemble sleek, contemporary, enclosed bookshelves – but when the four bi-fold doors open up, they’re transformed into something offering much more. The most basic product, called “Multiwall Console,” is 93 inches tall, 60 inches wide and only 8 inches deep from the wall. Multiwall Systems has already taken its first production order for the Multiwall Console, with the product being manufactured in Pennsylvania and expected to be delivered within three months. “The whole idea is to save space and to create efficiencies,” said Eric Bacon, one of the two partners who formed MultiWall Systems. “The consoles are meant to go in ‘dead spaces’ against walls for the efficient use of every space.” Multiwall Systems is the brain child of Bacon, an executive vice president at Leggat McCall Properties, the Boston development and project management firm that’s been involved in a number of residential developments over the years. “It was all kind of started on a lark,” said Bacon, who recently was trying to figure out how to fit an office in his new Back Bay condo when he came up with the idea of a multifunctional wall product that was pragmatic, sturdy, attractive and ultimately a space saver. A self-described amateur woodworker, Bacon said he proceeded to build a prototype of his idea and then later took it to Dave Kenyon, a well-known woodworker and custom cabinet maker in Jamaica Plain. The two were acquaintances who had worked together previously on a residential project – and now today they’re partners in Multiwall Systems LLC. “He’s a very creative guy with a lot of interesting ideas,” Kenyon said of Bacon. “He’s fun to work with. In 10

BAY STATE APARTMENT OWNER

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Fourth Quarter 2015

this case, we said ‘Let’s look at this idea (for wall consoles),’ and so we dove into it.” Both Bacon and Kenyon stress that Multiwall Systems is only their “night and weekend” job. But they’ve worked hard over the past 18 months on early concepts of the console, tinkering and building prototypes in Kenyon’s shop, Kenyon Woodworking, in Jamaica Plain. They even invited in local developers, architects and other professionals to see early versions of their concept, getting feedback and constructive criticism along the way. Bacon said the views of developers are especially important because he envisions eventually selling the consoles directly to multifamily housing developers, who can offer the console products to prospective tenants. For now, he’s not aiming at selling the products directly to residential customers. The consoles, which could sell from $2,200 to $2,600 each, might also one day be sold to hotels, college dorm operators and others trying to maximize space within small spaces, Kenyon said. As for micro-units, Bacon said he plans to pitch his products to developers making the uber-small units, which can hover anywhere from 300 square feet (such as units now being built in places like Seattle) to 450 feet (such as units being designed for Boston and New York). But Bacon emphasized he’s not confining his product to the micro-apartment market alone: He wants to sell to developers of all sizes of apartment units, figuring every apartment is often in need of space-saving devices. It’s just as well he’s broadened his target market. To date, the local micro-apartment trend is small

and limited primarily to Boston’s emerging Seaport District, as developers include micro-apartments, also known as “innovation units,” as part of a mix of different-sized apartments within new housing complexes. The goal: To provide less expensive housing options for people often priced out of Boston’s red-hot residential real estate market. So far, a total of 148 micro units, each around 450 square feet per apartment, have been built in the Seaport area and another 205 units have been approved for construction, according to data from the Boston Redevelopment Authority, an agency tasked with monitoring how the units fare before possibly expanding the microunit concept to other parts of the city. Among some of the local developments with new micro-units are Factory 63 (at 63 Melcher St.), with 27 units; 381 Congress St., with 44 units; 100 Pier, with 50 units; and Flats D (411 D St.), with 27 units, according to the BRA. Other developments with micro-apartments now under construction include Watermark (Parcel K Seaport Square), with 47 units; One Seaport Square, with 103 units; and 399 Congress St., with 56 units. The real estate community is closely monitoring the new units to see how they fare – not just in their early years but over the long-term. Will they be popular? Will they be used by non-Millennial tenants? Will they be used as pied-a-terre units by elder empty-nesters? “I think they will eventually work, but I don’t know how deep the trend will get and exactly how it will turn out,” said Frederick Kramer, vice president of the U.S.

commercial practice at the architecture firm Stantec. “It’s not for everyone.” But Kramer, whose used to be president of the architecture firm ADD Inc. before it was sold to Stantec last year, said he’s fascinated by the products being developed by Bacon and Kenyon. Kramer was one of the industry executives invited to get an early peek at the consoles. “They’re absolutely on the right track,” said Kramer of Multiwall’s pursuit of space-saver products for apartments. “There’s definitely a market opportunity for these types of products. What goes into these smaller apartments today is also evolving.” “It’s pretty intriguing,” said Adelaide Grady, a senior vice president in the Boston office of Pritzker Realty, a Chicago-based development company. Grady has also inspected Multiwall’s early console products. “Anything that enables renters to get more out of a small place is a plus,” she said. “In general, apartments are getting smaller and more efficient.” As for Bacon and Kenyon, they say they’re having fun exploring an entirely new market of providing products to increasingly smaller urban living spaces. “If we get our foot in the door early, the potential is unlimited,” said Kenyon. Though he obviously wants Multiwall Systems to take off as a business, Bacon said he’s satisfied so far with the overall effort and quality of his firm’s first products. “We built something we felt was really cool,” said Bacon. “It’s been fun.” n

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Lux Apartments Fetching Unheard-Of Prices Year-To-Date Apartment Sales Shatter Record $1.7B Set In 2007

Photo courtesy of Stantec.

“We are at an historic pace. Almost every urban deal is north of $500,000.”” — Travis D’Amato senior vice president, multifamily sales, JLL

Photo courtesy of Scott Ellison.

BY SCOTT VAN VOORHIS

Equity Residential’s $130-million deal for 315 on A equates to $640,000 per unit.

BAY STATE APARTMENT OWNER

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Fourth Quarter 2015

Photo courtesy of Stantec.

Think office tower prices have gone bonkers? Just look at some of the insane numbers new luxury apartment towers in Boston and Cambridge are fetching. Luxury units are flooding the downtown Boston market right now, with a new apartment tower seemingly on every corner. But investors, far from worried about a bubble, are shelling out unprecedented numbers to snap up these posh rental high-rises and towers and add them to their portfolios.

eals for apartment towers and buildings across the Boston area are on track to top $4 billion by the end of the year, blowing away the high-water mark set back in 2007, according to Travis D’Amato, a senior vice president at JLL in the multifamily sales group. Soaring rents and rock-bottom interest rates are helping stoke the frenzied deal-making. And the amount of money spent per apartment is soaring as well, with prices climbing into the $500,000s and $600,000s, almost double what was being spent just a few years ago. There is even talk of a deal for one deluxe downtown building in which the units are expected to sell for north of $1 million each, which would certainly be an eye-popping number. “We are at an historic pace,” JLL’s D’Amato said. “Almost every urban deal is north of $500,000,” he added of the soaring price per unit.

Record Deals So far this year, there have been $2.5 billion in sales of various apartment projects and towers. That beats out last year’s $1.4 billion and matches the previous high water mark, also $1.7 billion, in 2007, D’Amato said. Given all the properties on the market or about to close, we could be looking at another nearly $3 billion in deals before the end of the year, potentially pushing the total to $4.5 billion. All told, there have been 44 major multifamily deals so far this year in the Boston metro market, which includes everything inside I-495, Southern New Hampshire and parts of Rhode Island as well, according to D’Amato. That’s compared to 34 deals in all of 2014. Fetching these golden numbers are posh new addresses, like the new Twenty/20 tower in Cambridge’s budding North Point neighborhood and the Seaport’s 315 on A, among others. Twenty/20 NorthPoint is on track to fetch more than $200 million, or more than half a million dollars for each apartment. The 20-story tower, built by former City Hall development chief Tom O’Brien’s HYM Investments, features 335 apartments, including 41 subsidized units rented out at below market rates. Close to the Green and Orange lines, the new tower features amenities like a basketball halfcourt called Hoops and a bicycle garage. Over in Fort Point, 315 on A weighs in at a hefty $640,000 per door after Equity Residential’s $130-million deal for the 202-unit luxury living complex. Meanwhile, Charlestown’s Gatehouse 75 sold for more than $54 million in March. That’s $550,000 for each of its 99 units. These are prices significantly above the last high-water marks. The sale of Park Lane Seaport, twin towers on the waterfront, looked like quite a rich deal when the project sold for $193 million back in 2010. Yet at $416,000 per unit, it would hardly turn heads now. However, a blockbuster deal for The Arlington makes even make the $500,000 and $600,000 per apartment deals look conservative. The renovated 1920s Renaissance Revival building, overlooking Park Square with some of Boston’s most expensive apartments, recently sold for $132 million.

That places the value of each apartment in the 14-story high-rise at a phenomenal $1 million and change.

Sloughing Off Bubble Fears While the numbers may seem stunning, what’s happening here isn’t all that big a mystery. Rents are on a roll and developers and investors are scrambling to jump on the luxury apartment gravy train. Apartment rents have jumped by roughly 25 percent since the Great Recession, with rents on cramped studios equal to what tenants were paying for one- or two-bedroom apartments a few years ago. And, surprise, surprise, the rental high-rises fetching the big dollars from investors are the ones where it costs the most to live. The Arlington, for example, is one of the most expensive places to live in the city, with rents at a loft $6 a square foot. Rents start at $3,200 and go up from there. Still, why pump big dollars into a luxury apartment market that increasingly seems like it is on the road to overbuilding? Amazingly or not, real estate investors are betting big on a dangerous but predictable assumption, the old “this time it’s different.” That said, the numbers may not be quite as crazy as they seem. For one, the pension funds, real estate investment trusts and other investors snapping up luxury rental addresses at record prices are playing it safe when it comes to debt. Fearful of overleveraging, most deals now are topping out at 50 percent debt, with 65 to 70 percent at most, D’Amato said. That gives the prospective owners of Cambridge’s Twenty/20 or the Arlington in Boston some wiggle room should the economy stumble and the rental market takes a hit. Moreover, the Boston area, after years of anemic rental construction, is still starved for apartments, even with all the construction taking place. Of course, we won’t know whether all these assumptions were hopelessly overoptimistic or right on target until the rubber hits the road and the next downturn hits, as it eventually must. “Now you have much lower leverage and enough deep pockets that a drop of 10 percent isn’t going to hurt,” D’Amato said. “Something catastrophic would have to happen for a 30 percent loss in building value.” Unfortunately, “something catastrophic” often happens more often than we would like or expect. Given recent American history, this is not a completely reassuring line. As 2001 and 2008 both showed, catastrophic events typically strike when no one is looking and, while unusual, they happen with more regularity maybe than we give them credit for. Here’s hoping the luxury apartment tower market has at least a few more years before it faces a real stress test, catastrophic or not. n This article first appeared in the Sept. 14 issue of Banker & Tradesman; it has been updated with the most recent sales figures available. Fourth Quarter 2015 • BAY STATE APARTMENT OWNER

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617.428.5118 www.thewarrengroup.com Fourth Quarter 2015 • BAY STATE APARTMENT OWNER

LIBERALS LIVE IN THEM.

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