More than 4,000 apartments are in planning stages or under construction in the Wilmington area, according to a recent report.

During the second quarter of this year, crews were working on 12 projects that will add 1,809 units – a number that includes 144 units at Myrtle Landing Townhomes on Myrtle Grove Road – to the region’s rental inventory. Another 2,345 units are part of projects that developers have proposed, according to Multifamily Realty Advisors’ second quarter report on the Wilmington apartment market.
 
“The demand for new apartments in Wilmington has proven to be exceptionally strong,” said the report, compiled by Richard Cotton, managing director of Multifamily Realty Advisors and a commercial broker who specializes in the sale of apartment communities and apartment development sites.
 
Apartment developers agree with Cotton's statement, pointing to the area’s average vacancy rate of 4.6 percent as reported by Real Data, an apartment market research firm, in June.
 
“Despite the explosive growth of our apartment sector, Wilmington has one of the healthiest markets in the Southeast,” said Brian Eckel, of Wilmington-based GHK Cape Fear Development, in an email.

Eckel’s firm announced in May that GHK Cape Fear Development plans to build a 216-unit, luxury apartment community called Headwaters Apartment Homes at Brunswick Forest. 

“The forecast for demand is still very strong, so it doesn’t appear that the market is going to dramatically change over the next 12-18 months,” Eckel said. “Forecasts show that approximately 1,300 units will be absorbed in 2016.”
 
Eckel, whose company also developed Headwaters Apartment Homes at Autumn Hall off Eastwood Road and One Midtown off Independence Boulevard in Wilmington, said construction is expected to begin on the Brunswick County Headwaters apartments in the fourth quarter of this year.
 
Not all apartment projects that are proposed actually get built, and others sometimes face timeline changes.
 
“Although there are a lot of proposed projects in the works, I think you will see some of those projects temporarily stall as construction pricing is up considerably (over 25%) in the last few years,” Eckel said in an email. “Some of the banks are also tapping the brakes on some of the projects and are requiring additional equity for the new starts.”
 
As new apartment communities have joined the market, rental rates have gone up. The average apartment rent for the Wilmington market is $954 a month, compared to $907 the previous year, according to Real Data.
 
Newer apartments, those that are 1 to 5 years old, have the highest average rents at $1,421 per month, followed by apartments currently in lease-up with average rents at $1,229 per month, Cotton wrote in his report.