Looking for a temporary diversion from the wall-to-wall election coverage? Well, here’s a chart to ponder. It shows the National Multifamily Housing Council’s “Market Tightness Index.” The figures were just updated, and they show the index plunging to 28 in October from 43 in July. That’s the weakest going all the way back to Q2 2009, when the economy was just emerging from the Great Recession.Â
In other words, there is so much supply and so little demand, that landlords think the market is looser than at any point in the last seven years. This is the kind of data that continues to make me nervous about the prospects for Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).
