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Freddie Mac has released its U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook for October, which shows that the multifamily sector is a strong positive signal for the U.S. housing industry.

Highlights of the outlook include:

Over the year ending mid-2011, the Census Bureau reported a net increase of 1.4 million households that moved into rental housing, a 4 percent rise in the number of tenant households in just one year.
The U.S. homeownership rate has fallen about 1.5 percent over the past year, with owner rates falling by 4.4 percent for those under 25 years of age and by 7 percent for those aged 25 to 29 years.
Apartment rents, which had been flat to falling in many projects during the 2008-2009 recession, have begun to rise, albeit slowly.
New construction starts of apartments in buildings with at least 20 dwellings picked up this year, and in the second quarter, was the highest since the end of 2008.
Ten-year constant-maturity Treasury yields averaged 1.98 percent in September, the lowest monthly average since the Federal Reserve's series began in 1953; these yields are a common benchmark for multifamily mortgage rates, and suggest that mortgage rates fell to new lows for multifamily lending in recent weeks.

C.A.R.