Markets with Proportional Share of High-Rise Assets

With apartment market results in high-rise properties trailing performances in mid-rise and garden properties, some of the nation’s weakest performers are spots that contain the highest share of residential towers. High-rise properties are defined as seven stories or greater and, unsurprisingly, New York dominates the national market for the greatest share of high-rise apartment assets. Some 80% of the market’s housing survey sample set qualifies as high-rise buildings. This volume is double the amount seen in the next market, Miami. In Miami, the outsized share of high-rise assets is heavily clustered in the urban core, and along the coastal side of the metro. Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, DC round out the top five markets with the highest-share of high-rise assets due to their large local urban core neighborhoods. The bottom five high-rise share markets are generally more affordable, less dense metros with better occupancy and rent growth performances. Greensboro high-rise assets make up just 1% of the market’s total. Meanwhile, Fort Worth and Riverside have less than half a percent of high-rise assets. In those metros, the lack of high-rise properties is due to a less well-defined urban core, alongside the relative affordability of land, thereby easing cost pressures which often dictate whether a building will rise “upward” or “outward.”