A continuation of a series of reports on the Mississippi Gulf Coast apartment market. The 2016 survey includes 17,059 market-rent and 9,503 assisted apartment units in multifamily rental housing properties containing eight or more units located in Hancock, Harrison and Jackson Counties. Excluded from these surveys are single-family and duplex housing units, multifamily housing properties primarily offering “vacation” rentals, condo-hotels and condominium developments with several units offered “for rent” but are predominantly owner-occupied.

 

The purpose of this survey is to provide an indication of the current condition of the local apartment market. It is hoped that the availability of current and precise data on the local market, will “encourage” new multifamily rental housing construction when needed and “discourage” additional construction when not desirable.

 

Hopefully, this report will indirectly contribute to balanced conditions in the rental segment of the local housing market consequently supporting the continued healthy growth of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The data in this report is segmented by several variables such as number of bedrooms, location and marketrent or subsidized. Since the greatest differentiation among rental housing units is between market-rent apartments and those providing a form of governmental rental assistance; the assisted properties were excluded from the majority of this report and provided special treatment in the final section of this analysis.