A murky economic outlook has many multifamily investors opting to take a wait-and-see approach in 2019. So finds Capital One's fifth annual RealShare Apartments Conference survey, which revealed more than 42 percent of respondents plan to be neither buyers or sellers this year—a dramatic increase over the 16 percent who last year said they'd be observing the market from the sidelines.

Stock Market Turmoil in Q4 2018 Spurs Investor Caution Heading Into 2019

While this finding is undoubtedly food for thought, it also warrants a closer look at the factors that inform it. The survey was conducted in October 2018, during which the S&P 500 lost $1.91 trillion—making it the worst month for the benchmark index since September 2011. It's therefore fair to argue that this market turmoil spurred a knee-jerk reaction from a considerable number of spooked investors, who decided to sit things out until the dust settled. Clearly, the stock market's fourth-quarter roller coaster ride, coupled with the spike in interest rates that followed soon after and killed a number of deals that were then in progress, fostered an understandably bearish buying environment heading into 2019.

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