Easy there, fella.

Ah, the Blogger’s downfall: infrequent posting. At least I can say it was because I was too busy working and not too busy blogging to work. But I digress.

The Karnes Report is out. This is considered the de-facto source for real estate data in the Triangle, published quarterly by a local research firm. Guess what their name is? Anyway, things look solid for our region’s multi-family investment market. Here are some figures to note:

• The Raleigh-Cary and Durham MSA added 14,645 jobs per year over the seven-year period ending March 2007.

• A total of 4,429 units were under construction in the Triangle as of March 2007 and 539 units were completed over the last six months. Cary/Morrisville/Apex (CMA) reported the most activity.

• At 7.8%, the Triangle’s vacancy rate decreased from the 8.3% reported in September 2006.

• The current vacancy rate (see above) is the lowest reported since March of 1999, when it was 7.3%.

• Average weighted rents increased 1.0% over the past 12 months. The average two-bedroom apartment in the Triangle (the most common unit type), experienced a 1.6% increase in base rents.

As I stated in an earlier post, we’re starting to see rents increase. Is this a good thing? Certainly. Can it be bad? Sort of. The problem on the front end of trends like this is that some investors are eager to jump into a property, crank up rents $100/month and wait for the phone to ring. Well, they’ll be waiting a while.

It’s important to let the market do its job. If landlords wait for rents to have a real legitimacy behind their increase, it’s going to create a more balanced market. And remember, this takes time. It took about five years for the Triangle-area to lead itself off the rent plateau and the last thing we need is over-eager apartment buyers jumping blindly into the abyss of rent-increase hysteria. We’ve seen it. It’s not pretty.

I guess my point is that when buying your next apartment property, keep abreast of these over-arching market trends but don’t react to them right away. Let the market drive your decisions because in the long run, that discipline will help you better predict market fluctuations and ultimately, be a more prepared and better educated investor.