Multifamily has been experiencing a softening of fundamentals, including a rise in vacancies, but overall, the vacancy rate just only now reached 5.2% (to put that into context national vacancies have been below 5% since the first quarter of 2012). The question to ask is, will that rate hold steady, or is this the start of an upward trend? 

The answer isn't as straightforward as we'd hope. Generally, according to new research from Moody's Analytics, occupancy has remained stable this year, despite political and economic uncertainty and a large decline in asking and effective rents. However, households with the means to do so  are moving around, and the pandemic has ushered in an exodus in some large urban areas to the suburbs (or in some cases, somewhere else altogether.

Moody's predicts vacancies will exceed 6% this year, but they will likely top out there in many markets—and some may even decline, depending on how quickly markets adjust to post-COVID life. And that number is still below the 8% record high the sector hit during the Great Recession.