Why Buy/Sell Markets Don’t Overlap for Retail and Multifamily

Peter Muoio is the chief economist for Ten-X.

The retail and multifamily asset classes are following opposing supply-and-demand trends. As a result, the buy and sell markets for the two don’t overlap, and sometimes are even in opposition. According to a retail and multifamily report from Ten-X Commercial, the top retail buy markets are Austin, San Francisco, Orlando, Dallas and Houston, whereas in multifamily the top buy markets are Houston, Las Vegas, Raleigh-Durham, Atlanta and Salt Lake City. On the sell side, Milwaukee, Pittsburg, Oakland, Cleveland and Northern New Jersey make the list for retail markets and San Jose, Oakland, Miami, San Francisco and Milwaukee make the list for apartments. These markets are driven by very different fundamentals.

“When you have this situation where you are under competitive assault from e-retail, it helps to have a growing economy,” Peter Muoio, chief economist at Ten-X, tells GlobeSt.com. “It really is a situation where you have weak demographics and weak economies in the sell markets compared to those that are in the Southeast and the Southwest.”