Affordable housing proposed for Lakewood Ranch area

If approved, the 66-unit rental townhome project will be located on Lorraine Road next to Savanna at Lakewood Ranch.

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• By Lesley Dwyer via Your Observer <— Click here for full article and others by Lesley
• | 10:00 a.m. April 17, 2024

Development is nothing new to the Lakewood Ranch area, but a development that includes affordable housing units is now on the horizon.

Windham Development submitted an application to Manatee County to build 66 townhomes on a 10-acre parcel located at 3518 Lorraine Road.

If approved, 25% or 17 of the townhomes will be rented at a “moderate affordable” rate as determined by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

The project was recommended unanimously by the Planning Commission on April 11. It will go before the Board of County Commissioners on April 18 at the land use meeting.

The yellow rectangle shows the 10-acre site where Windham Development wants to build 66 townhomes.

Amara, the county’s first affordable housing project approved in East County, was approved in January. The project will provide 152 units of affordable housing on Lena Road about a mile south of S.R. 64. 

If approved, Lorraine Crossings will offer the first affordable units in the Lakewood Ranch area. Savanna at Lakewood Ranch is located to the north and west of the property, and Esplanade at Azario is to the east. 

What is affordable housing?

Affordable housing is not Section 8 housing. These are not government-run apartments. The apartments are in standard developments, but at least 25% of the units are guaranteed not to exceed HUD’s rental cap for a set number of years. 

In the case of Lorraine Crossings, 17 units must remain rent controlled over a period of 20 years. Rowena Young-Gopie, Housing Development Coordinator for Manatee County, said that the rest of the units are priced at market rate by the developer. 

The word “affordable” is subjective given the location of the rental. Manatee County’s median income is $97,000, one of the higher medians in the state. Meanwhile, neighboring DeSoto County is on the lower end of the scale at $57,100.

Depending on the number of bedrooms a unit has, the difference between the two medians results in a $500 to $1,000 difference in rent caps. A studio apartment in Manatee has a higher rent cap than a two-bedroom in DeSoto.

HUD rental limits by number of bedrooms

% of Median Income	0	1	2	3	4	5
30%	$453	$486	$583	$752	$929	$1,106
50%	$756	$810	$971	$1,122	$1,252	$1,381
80%	$1,208	$1,295	$1,553	$1,795	$2,002	$2,210
120%	$1,815	$1,944	$2,331	$2,694	$3,006	$3,316
140%	$2,117	$2,268	$2,719	$3,143	$3,507	$3,869

For the Manatee workforce, that means even “affordable housing” in the area can be pricey. Rent caps are income-based, so a lessee earning 120% of the median could pay up to $2,694 a month for a three-bedroom unit in Lorraine Crossings.

For a family earning 80% of the median income, the rent would be capped at $1,795 a month for the same unit. 

The affordable housing units at both Amara and Lorraine Crossings are designated for applicants earning from 80-120% of the median income of $97,000.

HUD household income limits by number of people

% of Median Income	1	2	3	4	5	6
30%	$21,150	$24,150	$27,150	$31,200	$36,580	$41,960
50%	$35,200	$40,200	$45,250	$50,250	$54,300	$58,300
80%	$56,300	$64,350	$72,350	$80,400	$86,800	$93,250
120%	$84,480	$96,480	$108,600	$120,600	$130,320	$139,920
140%	$98,560	$112,560	$126,700	$140,700	$152,040	$163,240

Under those percentages, a family of five can earn up to $130,320. But could that family of five afford an apartment even on the low-end of the rent scale? The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates the average annual cost of living in Florida is $50,689 per person.

“In my opinion, I don’t think of $1,800 as affordable,” Coldwell Banker Realtor Chris Schwartz said. “You have $1,800 plus water, electricity, cable and internet. And now, you need a car to drive around. Then you need gas and have to eat. And if you have children, there’s daycare expenses.” 

Who benefits?

The county’s intent is to provide more affordable housing options for residents, but the high median income poses a challenge because that’s the number the rent and income caps are derived from. 

“We don’t create this calculation, we just adhere to HUD rules,” Young-Gopie said. 

Looking at the rental market, what’s being proposed as “moderate affordable” by HUD can be found outside these deals brokered by Manatee County. 

Developers are incentivized to include affordable housing in their developments through the Livable Manatee program, which was passed in 2017 and revamped in 2022. 

Developers benefit from the program through higher density allotments, expedited permitting and design leeway for parking, buffers and access points. 

To date, developers in East County have only signed deals to serve residents earning between 80-120% of the median income. So on the high-end, the caps are competitive within the current market. 

Lorraine Crossing isn’t approved or built yet, but as of today, large families earning 120% of the median income could find a bigger bang for their buck next door in Savanna. 

Single family homes with four bedrooms and up to three bathrooms are listed for rent on Homes.com for less than HUD’s high-end rent cap of $3,006 for a four-bedroom. 

Two apartment complexes near the proposed site for Lorraine Crossings, Vida Lakewood Ranch and Estia at Lakewood Ranch, start two-bedroom apartments at less than HUD’s rate for those earning 120% of the median income in that category, too. 

However, if comparing Vida and Estia to an affordable unit at the 80% income level, there is a savings. Two-bedrooms start at about $2,200 in both complexes, and the HUD cap is $1,553 for that income bracket. 

Vida and Estia are luxury apartment complexes that come with heated pools and fitness centers among other amenities. Lorraine Crossings and Amara will be standard housing.

Planning Commission Chair Richard Bedford asked Windham to find room for a “tot lot” at Lorraine Crossings.

“Since it’s an affordable housing project, one would assume there’s going to be some children running around,” Bedford said. “Maybe between now and the board hearing, you might want to entertain that.”

The county is widening Lorraine Road from two lanes to four between 59th Avenue East and State Road 64. The county needs about a third of an acre along Lorraine Road to complete the improvements. 

Because Windham plans to include affordable housing, the project was able to bump up the density from 3 dwelling units per acre to 6.85 units per acre.

In between the road and wetlands, the 66 townhomes will be built within nine buildings at a maximum of two stories. A two-lane street will run through the center of the complex to provide access from Lorraine Road. 

If approved, construction is expected to begin in the first or second quarter of 2025.

Which smaller markets grew at the fastest rental rates in 2023?

It’s always nice to see my current and hometown of Sarasota, FL on the list!

– Jay Parson’s (Realpage) follow up to ‘Which (larger) markets grew at fastest rates’ <–Click on Jay’s name to visit this full article and heaps of juicy research!

Yesterday I shared the top U.S. markets for apartment demand in 2023. But since those types of leaderboards favor large markets, I wanted to follow up by sharing the size-adjusted version of the demand leaderboard: Which markets grew at the fastest rate in 2023? This version highlights the growth rate in the number of households renting apartments. Here are the top 15.

— Huntsville, AL, is in a category of its own with 15.1% more apartment renting households in 2023 versus 2022. Huntsville is no secret among apartment developers (as Huntsville also led the nation in supply growth rate for 2023), but it still flies below the national radar despite a well-balanced economy headlined by a boom in high-paying aerospace jobs.

— A trio of booming tertiary markets rank next: Sioux Falls, SD; Lakeland/Winter Haven, FL; and Port St. Lucie/Vero Beach, FL. All three benefited from pandemic-era migration booms, and while growth is moderating (as expected), these three appear to have staying power with different appeal in all three.

— But it’s not all about small markets. Bigger metros cracking the top 15 include Nashville, Salt Lake City, Charlotte, Raleigh/Durham, Austin and Jacksonville. Remember the bigger you are, the harder it is to grow at a fast rate, so growth rates of 4-6% are absolutely remarkable for this group. Analysts often bemoan the huge supply hitting all these markets, but let’s not forget what is driving all that supply: A LOT of demand. And while demand likely can’t keep pace in the short term, there’s little doubt demand will remain robust in these spots even once supply drops off in 2025-26. Cynics will say “but growth is slowing,” but that slowing is off the all-time highs of 2021. “Slowing” to pre-COVID levels in these markets still equates to huge growth.

— Others to highlight: Colorado Springs, CO; Pensacola, FL; Myrtle Beach, SC, Wilmington, NC; and Savannah, GA. And ranking right behind them are Sarasota, FL and Boise, ID. Takeaway: People like the beaches and the mountains. Some folks dismiss markets like these as “Zoom towns” that temporarily boomed only to bust. But they forget these were growing markets even prior to COVID. These aren’t merely seasonal spring break cities like some others. Moderating growth was inevitable, but these spots will remain migration magnets. Of course, smaller markets tend to be more prone to boom/bust cycles and most of these do have a lot of supply in the short term to work through, but they should do well over the longer term.

Supply shocks can cause short-term challenges. But over the long term? Follow the people.

#apartments #multifamily #rentersActivate to view larger image,

Florida Focus – 2nd Installment – Small Towns –

This time around we are looking at Lakewood Ranch, FL as it is annually one of the fastest growing towns in Manatee County and continues to define suburban life on the Gulf Coast of Florida.

Lakewood Ranch is a planned community and census-designated place in southeastern Manatee County and northeastern Sarasota County, Florida, United States, consisting of approximately 31,000 acres (13,000 ha).^[5] It is part of the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area.

According to the 2020 census, the census-designated place had a population of 34,877

Video showcasing some of LWR’s highlights.

The History of the land (wikipedia)

The area originally was assembled in 1905 by John Schroeder as Schroeder-Manatee Ranch (SMR). The land was purchased by members of Milwaukee‘s Uihlein family in 1922 for ranch operations such as timber and cattle.^[5][8][9]

In 1977, the Sarasota Manatee Airport Authority announced intentions to build a new airport near the Sarasota-Manatee county line about 10 to 20 miles (16 to 32 km) east of its current location, linking to future Interstate 75.^[10] The airport authority struck down the idea in 1985 and expanded the existing airport facility.^[11] The airport proposal and the construction of Interstate 75 resulted in SMR’s board of directors to pursue creating a planned community for the land.

In the 1980s, SMR designed a destination resort project called Cypress Banks. The project consisted of 1,800 acres (730 ha) and included 5,000 mixed residential units, three golf courses, and a 300-room hotel.^[9] The project and development of regional impact (DRI) were initially denied by Manatee County in 1987 but later approved in December 1989. The project never broke ground and SMR maintained vested rights to the land.^[9][12] The first neighborhood development, Summerfield, was built and completed in 1995.

Lakewood Ranch has some up and coming places that you should consider visiting if you are in this nexk of the woods.

Osteria 500 is a newer authentic italian restaurant. The pizza is fantastic.

I’m partial to Good Liquid, which is a fun, casual family place. The food is delicious, the brewery has lots of tasty beverages and there is an outdoor patio on the water along with an open park area for cornhole, games, kids, etc. Dogs are welcome in the outdoor areas as well.

Wolves Head Pizza & Wings – Hidden away little spot thats great for catching a game or just taking the kiddos for pizza!

Cooper’s Hawk is not technically in the original Lakewood Ranch, but it feels like the namesake’s sprawl extended a bit, albeit informally. Regardless, this is a great spot for some happy hour bites and wine.

Bob Gardner Park – I live near this park and am there quite often. It’s got everything. 3 Dog Parks, Dedicated playgrounds, soccer fields, open spaces, frisbee golf (full course).

Here is a great site to dive a bit deeper…

Lakewood Ranch, Florida has evolved from an agricultural track that straddled the Sarasota-Manatee County Line, just east of Sarasota and Bradenton to today’s award winning 7,000-acre master planned community encompassing all aspects of residential and commercial development.

The 17 villages that make up Lakewood Ranch offer a variety of lifestyles. From townhomes, single family homes and luxury estates, Lakewood Ranch communities share living space with dramatic landscapes of forest and wetland preserves full of native wildlife. Recreational facilities include Lakewood Ranch Country Club and Athletic Center, 54 holes of championship golf, the Sarasota Cricket Club, nine world-class polo fields and a variety of community parks, lakes and nature preserves.

A strong sector is surging – Storage

Public Storage Needs More Space

The self-storage company made an $11 billion unsolicited offer for its rival Life Storage merely a month after proposals were denied in December and January. Public Storage currently operates over 2,800 self-storage facilities in the US, but its overture to Life Storage is aimed at building a more extensive real estate portfolio and economies of scale in an increasingly fragmented space.

Titan’s Takeaway

Self-storage stocks popped during the COVID rally, recently giving up their big gains and seeking to grow by acquisition. While M&A activity has slowed in the sector as part of a broader downturn in dealmaking, the self-storage space continues to be primed for acquisitive tendencies. Though they operate in different parts of the storage industry, Public Storage seems to be taking a page out of the playbook of Wilscot Mobile Mini. Wilscot’s merger with Mobile Mini in 2020 made it the dominant player in modular space and portable storage in North America. Public Storage already holds a remarkable 198 million square feet of rentable space, but everyone needs more space.

Fair market rents in Sarasota region up nearly 35% over 2019

Although home prices are stabilizing, fair market rents in the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton metro area are up by 34.5% over 2019 as market pressures continue in the wake of the pandemic.

via yourobserver.com – written by Andrew Warfield 12/4/22

When it comes to fair market rent, the North Port-Sarasota-Manatee metropolitan statistical area finished just outside of the top 15 among midsize metro areas in increases since before COVID-19, according to a new study by trade publication Construction Coverage.

Since 2019, the region has seen an increase of 34.5% compared to a national average of 24%. Fair market rent is an estimate of the cost of gross rents (rent and utility expenses) on 40% of the rental housing units in an area. It serves as the basis for several Housing and Urban Development calculations, including Section 8 vouchers.

Even as housing prices cool, rents continue to rise. Since 2019, some local housing markets are seeing rent increases in excess of 50%.

Although Florida has four regions ranking among the top 15 large metros and two among midsize metros, renters in Arizona and Nevada have contended with the largest rent increases in the country at 53.9% and 48.4%, respectively. At the opposite end of the spectrum, rents rose  5% in Alaska since before the pandemic.

Housing stock pressures in high in-migration states such a Florida are exacerbated by the growth in the number of households which grew by 750,000 from 2020 to 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In addition, many would-be buyers priced out of the housing market continued renting, placing additional pressure on rental supply.

Average fair market rent

	North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton	National average
Studio	$1,065	$1,074
One-bedroom	$1,277	$1,177
Two-bedroom	$1,593	$1,427
Three-bedroom	$2,112	$1,863
Four-bedroom	$2,514	$2,159

In Florida, top 15-ranked large metros for increases in fair market rent are:

• Tampa-St. Pete-Clearwater: No. 3 at 46.9%
• Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford: No. 8 at 35.8%
• Jacksonville: No. 9 at 33.8%
• Miami-Fort-Lauderdale-Pompano Beach: No. 13 at 31.5%.

Among midsize metro areas are:

• Cape Coral-Fort Myers: No. 5 at 39.5%
• Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville: No. 10 at 37.7%

To determine the metro areas with the largest increase in fair market rent since 2019, Construction Coverage analyzed data from the HUD and the U.S Census Bureau, ranking them according to the percentage change in costs. The complete report can be viewed here.

JPMorgan invests $1B in rental homes w/(Commentary as well)

By Ruiqi Chen, Editor at LinkedIn News

Updated 2 hours ago

JPMorgan Chase is buying and developing US$1 billion worth of rental homes.

The Wall Street bank’s asset-management division has agreed to a joint venture with Haven Realty Capital to create “entire communities of new homes,” according to Bloomberg, starting with 2,500 homes in three neighborhoods in Atlanta. JPMorgan took a similar step in 2020, when the bank worked with American Homes 4 Rent on a US$625 million venture. Haven Realty’s founder said he believes demand for single-family rentals will remain high, despite the housing market’s recent cool-off.

Jay Parsons• Rental Housing Economist (Apartments, SFR) and PropTech VP

For anyone thinking that deal flow and new rental housing development would grind to a halt due to high rates … not so fast. We certainly will see acquisitions and new starts slow, but announcements like this one (JPMorgan investing in a $1 billion fund to development build-to-rent single-family communities) are a good reminder: Investors love rental housing — both MF and SFR. Few thoughts:

1) Remember that higher rates and inflation impact pretty much all investments. Yields will compress, but investors needing to place capital still find SFR/BTR and multifamily attractive relative to other options. Rentals are relatively liquid and they produce cashflow.

2) Hearing from lenders that they’re still open for business but being very selective — which usually means narrowing business to established developers with whom they have long relationships. Also requiring lower LTVs, more equity — which narrows the pool.

3) I know a lot of people (myself included) want to see more for-sale homes getting built — especially starter homes. But few outside the industry understand how difficult that math has gotten this year. BTR (like multifamily) is usually lower risk than traditional homebuilding because a) a single buyer is often locked in very early for the entire project, b) it’s less vulnerable to shifts in rates, c) the ability to build at scale more efficiently without custom packages for each home.

4) We’ll continue to see capital favoring the Sun Belt (like this JPM deal that starts in Atlanta) given stronger structural demand fundamentals and lesser policy risk. Opportunistic and local buyers will still target coastal cities but investors increasingly nervous about risks. Skeptics will worry about supply; and supply will certainly be a short-term risk to account for, particularly if demand remains soft. But remember that supply is structural while demand is cyclical. Supply will taper back, and demand will be there in the long term.

#BTR #SFR #rentalhousing #Multifamily #CommercialRealEstate. #CRE #DPCRE

To view more content from Mr. Parsons, CLICK HERE <—–

This is the One. The Memphis Apartments in Palmetto, FL. Priced to Sell.

www.DP-CRE.com

www.DP-CRE.com

The Complicated SFR and BTR Markets

By Lew Sichelman. via Multi-housing News (December 2021)

Photo by David McBee on Pexels.com

The single-family build-to-rent sector has been described during a panel at the National Association of Real Estate Editors conference in Miami as a growth business that is only just now findings its legs.

When Richard Ross of Quinn Residences founded his company a month prior to the start of the pandemic, his goal was to raise $250 million. The company recently closed out its capital raise at a whopping $900 million.

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“That’s indicative of the strength of the market,” said Ross, who predicted that the 29,000-a year run-rate of new BTR houses over the last decade is likely to double over the next five years.

Added Todd LaRue of RCLCO: “There is huge universe of demand for these alternative rental units.”

Growth Opportunities

Todd Wood of Christopher Todd Communities said his company’s on the verge of a major expansion. “We will be in every single region,” he told a session on the BTR boom. “If we are not there yet, we will be.”

But in an earlier session on the future of the post-COVID suburb, panelist Alex Kamkar of Bold Fox Development shared his negative thoughts on the BTR concept, essentially calling it perhaps the worst thing to hit the housing market.

“Housing is not a commodity, but the investment guys think it is,” said Kamkar, whose firm develops master-planned communities. “Houses are being taken offline to the benefit of Wall Street,” but to the determent of local home buyers.

The developer explained that some BTR companies are buying a large number of lots—maybe 300 at a time— and then hiring local builders to put up houses. In doing so, he said, they are not only adding to the scarcity of building sites but also taking builders away from producing market-rate, for-sale houses.

According to the National Association of Home Builders, the availability of building sites nationwide is at a multi-decade low. And housing blogger Bill McBride of Calculated Risk recently reported that a record 109,000 houses that have been permitted have yet to be started, almost double the normal level.

Questionable Future

“I know of at least three instances where builders have walked away from building single-family houses in order to build rental houses,” said Kamkar, who also is a city councilman in Pearland, Texas, where he has fought to block the development of SFR communities. “That’s artificially pressing down the market.”

The result: “We’re not building enough houses for Joe Six-Pack to own,” he said.

Adam Ducker of RCLCO agreed with the Texas developer, but only to a degree. “You are right,” Ducker said, “but hopefully this will only be temporary.” Architect Mark Meyer of TBG Partners was “a little more optimistic.”

Eventually, the market will work itself out, Kamkar conceded, “but a lot of people are going to get hurt. There’s only so many A-list renters and rents are never going to come down.”

Meyer suggested that BTR communities will eventually be traded among investors in the way apartment properties were swapped in the 1990s, and as they are dealt from one buyer to the other, they will be upgraded.

But Kamkar warned that there are only so many top-notch investors to go around. “The Blackstone Group is the creme-de-la-creme,” he told Multi-Housing News after the session, “but the next buyer won’t be Blackstone. “This thing is going to go broke eventually.” Blackstone owns Invitation Homes, one of the nation’s largest BTR companies.

For the complete article and others like it, visit Multi-Housing News here <——

To view some Multifamily assets available currently or connect to discuss your properties, visit Dreznin Pappas Commercial Real Estate by clicking Here <——

All is well here in Lakewood Ranch, FL — 8am Hurricane Ian update

Other than a few trees down, lots of wind and rain, we’re good. Sending some good vibes down to our friends and neighbors to the South in Fort Myers area.

9pm final update on Hurricane 🌀 Ian in Lakewood Ranch, FL