Effects of Foreclosure crisis

Tom Daykin reports that apartment vacancy rate has gone down to 4.8% in the Milwaukee area.

The report also says asking rents and effective rents will rise 1.2% and 2%, respectively, to $813 per month and $780 per month.

I'm not sure how "Milwaukee area" is defined as I don't have access to the original Marcus & Milichap Real Estate Investment Services report, but the creation of 640 new units in 2010 probably is mostly City of Milwaukee as rural areas generally are unable to provide water & sewer service to multi-family housing and some suburban communities have a "housing mix" policy that essentially restricts the development of multi-family housing for the near future.

While this is a relatively small change, it's probably an indicator that people displaced by foreclosures are increasingly renting (although many probably are living with families/friends temporarily).

From my perspective, the creation of new multi-family housing, even when high-priced luxury housing, is a good thing as it increases the number of units covered by the Fair Housing Act's accessibility requirements.  Single-family market-rate housing has no state or federal accessibility requirements.