urbanSTL

i'm a little worried about who is buying up the property, though. we just sold our home in most-definitely-not-gentrifying Dutchtown to a California hedge fund that creates for-rent "workforce housing"—definitely not my preferred buyer but we couldn't keep up with multiple mortgage payments any longer. my fear is that it's going to become impossible for people of modest means to afford to buy homes in the city, and that everything is going to be owned by out-of-state investors. that's a long way off, I'm sure, but it's a trend that seems to be occurring across the country.

EDIT: I just realize that "most-definitely-not-gentrifying" might come across as sarcasm. it was not intended to be sarcasm. Dutchtown is still struggling while the near south side gentrifies.

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote: ↑

Aug 11, 2020

There is only a limited amount of truly urban space in the region and most of it is in STL City. Even without regional population growth, the city is likely to become even more expensive as the rich whites move in and poor blacks are forced to aging suburbs.

True for neighborhoods in the Tower Grove area for example, but there is still so much unused housing capital in the city (Dutchtown, North City etc) that I think it will take a long time until this starts making a dent. I see this as cycle, not trend.

Some newer data from Redfin on STL migration. Trends look good.

Looks at peer cities and superstar cities in this thread:





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Looks like STL metro area home sales are down for the year.

Not a surprise with the squeeze on supply, no?


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Sales may be down but what is out there is moving fast and for crazy prices. Houses near me I see the prices listed on Zillow and think they are crazy. They sell in a few days.

^Every time I look at home prices in my neighborhood I scratch my head a bit. Zillow seems to think my house is worth more than twice what I paid for it three years ago and they seem to think I lost a bedroom somewhere. I get the feeling a house in my neighborhood is going to sell without ever being listed. Nothing ever seems to stay for sale long and you never see signs anymore.

^I could, but I don't really want to sell it. And the city is perfectly capable of raising my property taxes without the extra incentive.

What's funny, is when we were buying it Zillow listed it as three bedrooms, so someone adjusted the listing at some point. It's kind of a marginal case. I suspect it was originally four bedrooms and two baths, but one of the bedooms on the first floor has a glass door, which is probably verboten, and someone altered the closet in the back bedroom. There's still a closet there, but it's a bit smaller now and has the back of a refrigerator in it. I use the front room as a library in any case. The back bedroom is presently a guest bedroom and sewing room, but it's been ours in summers past. (My wife isn't so attached to the "my room/guest room" fixedness of Western culture. All rooms are flexible in Vietnam, and you usually put the guests in the best one, unless there's a particularly respected family elder in it.)

St. Louis has seen the 3rd highest growth in rental asking prices year/year and the 4th highest growth in the last month. Zumper included it as one of 7 “pandemic destination cities”. 22.1% growth in rental asking prices year over year. Wow.


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Wow. It would make sense if developers have been aware of that underlying trend this year since that's how they make their money. Perhaps that's a factor in the flood of recent new residential project announcements.

SeattleNative wrote: ↑

Dec 02, 2020

St. Louis has seen the 3rd highest growth in rental asking prices year/year and the 4th highest growth in the last month. Zumper included it as one of 7 “pandemic destination cities”. 22.1% growth in rental asking prices year over year. Wow.


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I'd wager the West End, the Grove and maybe a couple of other neighborhoods are driving this.  Downtown itself has been largely flat for over a decade.

OnTheEdge wrote:

SeattleNative wrote: ↑

Dec 02, 2020

St. Louis has seen the 3rd highest growth in rental asking prices year/year and the 4th highest growth in the last month. Zumper included it as one of 7 “pandemic destination cities”. 22.1% growth in rental asking prices year over year. Wow.


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I'd wager the West End, the Grove and maybe a couple of other neighborhoods are driving this.  Downtown itself has been largely flat for over a decade.

Same website says median rental asking price is up 9% y/y in Downtown.


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SeattleNative wrote:

St. Louis has seen the 3rd highest growth in rental asking prices year/year and the 4th highest growth in the last month. Zumper included it as one of 7 “pandemic destination cities”. 22.1% growth in rental asking prices year over year. Wow.


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Yet the downtown rental market is in the tank and on a downward spiral. Could it be because BPV came online?

downtown2007 wrote: ↑

Dec 02, 2020

SeattleNative wrote:

St. Louis has seen the 3rd highest growth in rental asking prices year/year and the 4th highest growth in the last month. Zumper included it as one of 7 “pandemic destination cities”. 22.1% growth in rental asking prices year over year. Wow.

Yet the downtown rental market is in the tank and on a downward spiral. Could it be because BPV came online?

If anything BPV would draw people Downtown, including prospective residents, even if its full value add to the neighborhood has been hindered this year. 

I think Covid could disproportionately hurt Downtown - just in that a large proportion of the rental stock is large elevator buildings, which may be less popular right now, as opposed to what you'd get in most of the rest of the city outside of DT and to a lesser extent CWE (which has large apartment buildings, but also a larger proportion of duplexes and small walk-up apartment buildings than DT). 

But it's also just a continuation of a trend that was going on before Covid started. CWE, DeBaliviere Place, FPSE, Shaw, TGS, Benton Park, Soulard, and Laff. Sq. all seem to have been outperforming Downtown over a number of years now outside of the one unique outlier of OCW. 

SeattleNative wrote: ↑

Dec 02, 2020

Same website says median rental asking price is up 9% y/y in Downtown.


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Zero chance the average loft on Washington, etc is up 9% YOY.  

I'd be interested to see how they came up with that 9%.  Maybe just analyzing what's available and with OCW coming online w/ many units, and as among the highest priced residential downtown, I could see that skewing the numbers.

OnTheEdge wrote:

SeattleNative wrote: ↑

Dec 02, 2020

Same website says median rental asking price is up 9% y/y in Downtown.


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Zero chance the average loft on Washington, etc is up 9% YOY.  

I'd be interested to see how they came up with that 9%.  Maybe just analyzing what's available and with OCW coming online w/ many units, and as among the highest priced residential downtown, I could see that skewing the numbers.

A couple things to keep in mind here:

These are medians as opposed to averages, meaning outliers are less impactful.

These are rental asking prices collected through listings placed on Zumper, which has a ton of listings, but probably does trend more to professionally managed apartments.

I think it’s reasonable to believe that a single project could impact one neighborhood’s numbers some, so OCW might be doing that some... but again, median as opposed to average limits this a bit.

I think it’s a lot less reasonable to believe two projects could be skewing an entire metro area’s numbers so any speculation that OCW and One Hundred are doing that is probably out the window.

It also hasn’t been uncommon to hear about places in SF and NYC giving up to 6 months free to artificially keep listed rent rates higher. While I don’t think that’s happening here, some buildings might be giving a month free.

Ultimately, rental rates here are booming faster than almost anywhere in the country. Interesting to say the least.


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OnTheEdge wrote: ↑

Dec 03, 2020

SeattleNative wrote: ↑

Dec 02, 2020

Same website says median rental asking price is up 9% y/y in Downtown.


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Zero chance the average loft on Washington, etc is up 9% YOY.  

I'd be interested to see how they came up with that 9%.  Maybe just analyzing what's available and with OCW coming online w/ many units, and as among the highest priced residential downtown, I could see that skewing the numbers.

Small sample size, but my unit "on Wash Ave" (technically Locust) rents for 15% more in 2020 than it did in 2019...

^ Interesting discussion on downtown.  I think it is interesting to note that some of the recent downtown residential development outside of OCW were along the lines of being self financed and or developers taking on a bigger share of the upfront cost versus fully financed by outside capital.  Which probably works for the smaller buildings downtown but not the ones that truly add some big numbers, say getting Railway Exchange building developed.   Believe this is another factor in what is driving numbers.   Outside investors see growth around central corridor and therefore the multiple projects in multiple neighborhoods but timid on downtown itself

I do think the 2CW and the Cupples parcel proposal will be a big step for downtown to get its share of the uptick in new development.  Hope they happen and can see the Cupples parcel proposal breaking ground in 2021 with a strong national developer behind it.   I do agree with 2021 predictions of 2CW being announced but not breaking ground until beginning of 2022 after Cordish/Dewitt take a breather from the BPV2 push  and Cardinals get another season behind them.  Cordish/DeWitt in no rush and will stick with seeing a healthy cash flow from BPV2 and confidence in a min return before breaking ground on next parcel.  But while we wait on 2CW the plus side of getting Cupples infill and 300 N. Broadway started is reflection of some much needed capital/financing willing to go into downtown residential.  

On a different perspective.   I'm co signer for my step daughters CWE studio.  The rent on that older but clean studio/well run apartment building in a great CWE location is far cheaper than we would ever see out here in the Bay Area even with San Fran rent prices nose diving.  Pushing her to do as much of her schooling in St. Louis before making here next step in life because it so much more affordable.   The rent rises might reflect that St. Louis was almost too affordable and that some things might be happening for the better.

^Compared to SF NYC is dirt cheap.

I have always taken the contrary opinion and believe that St. Louis is NOT cheap.  When you compare any city to SF or NYC, or DC, they are all CHEAP.  My wife and I have lived in other places, nearly all of our social circle are transplants, and nearly everyone we know comments that it's "fairly expensive" out here to live, especially when you look to buy a modestly nice house to live in.  Sure, the stats show that it's "cheap", but in practice when you actually go to look to find a decent place to live (buy or rent) in a decent area you're quite above the statistical average.  I've got friends and family all around the country to compare with and transplant opinions on other forums such as Citydata would agree with this as well.

I've been meaning to write the development agencies (I am on the regional chamber) to rethink this strategy.  When I hear something is cheap, I ask why? Or in this case, may infer that's because no one wants to live there.  2 years ago they were running a 250 mile radius campaign trying to get people to relocate from smaller towns to STL. I guarantee people from rural IL, MO will get sticker shock if they are told STL is cheap. 

cteclipse wrote:^Compared to SF NYC is dirt cheap.

I have always taken the contrary opinion and believe that St. Louis is NOT cheap.  When you compare any city to SF or NYC, or DC, they are all CHEAP.  My wife and I have lived in other places, nearly all of our social circle are transplants, and nearly everyone we know comments that it's "fairly expensive" out here to live, especially when you look to buy a modestly nice house to live in.  Sure, the stats show that it's "cheap", but in practice when you actually go to look to find a decent place to live (buy or rent) in a decent area you're quite above the statistical average.  I've got friends and family all around the country to compare with and transplant opinions on other forums such as Citydata would agree with this as well.

I've been meaning to write the development agencies (I am on the regional chamber) to rethink this strategy.  When I hear something is cheap, I ask why? Or in this case, may infer that's because no one wants to live there.  2 years ago they were running a 250 mile radius campaign trying to get people to relocate from smaller towns to STL. I guarantee people from rural IL, MO will get sticker shock if they are told STL is cheap. 

Can you give some examples of where STL is not cheap compared to in your mind? What neighborhoods do you find to be a decent place to live?


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I wonder if the thousands of students who rented apartments this year impacted the numbers at all. I know a few of the luxury developers that I talked to chalk their current lease rates up to having the students.

ldai_phs wrote:I wonder if the thousands of students who rented apartments this year impacted the numbers at all. I know a few of the luxury developers that I talked to chalk their current lease rates up to having the students.

Im sure that’s helped with leasing some, but I would think that would raise rental tides in every city with universities in a fairly similar way. So we’re seeing increased demand beyond just that I think.


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cteclipse wrote: ↑

Dec 04, 2020

^Compared to SF NYC is dirt cheap.

I have always taken the contrary opinion and believe that St. Louis is NOT cheap.  When you compare any city to SF or NYC, or DC, they are all CHEAP.  My wife and I have lived in other places, nearly all of our social circle are transplants, and nearly everyone we know comments that it's "fairly expensive" out here to live, especially when you look to buy a modestly nice house to live in.  Sure, the stats show that it's "cheap", but in practice when you actually go to look to find a decent place to live (buy or rent) in a decent area you're quite above the statistical average.  I've got friends and family all around the country to compare with and transplant opinions on other forums such as Citydata would agree with this as well.

I've been meaning to write the development agencies (I am on the regional chamber) to rethink this strategy.  When I hear something is cheap, I ask why? Or in this case, may infer that's because no one wants to live there.  2 years ago they were running a 250 mile radius campaign trying to get people to relocate from smaller towns to STL. I guarantee people from rural IL, MO will get sticker shock if they are told STL is cheap. 

Well, this position is empirically and anecdotally incorrect. My colleagues in Chicago are paying 2-3X my rent for less square footage. 

The only thing that is expensive in St. Louis is groceries. I assume its because there isn't enough competition for Schnucks but idk.

I am not sure where that company is getting their numbers from. Effective rents in CWE and Downtown are down about .5 to 1%.  No submarket in St. Louis has seen rent growth over 5% from what I am seeing. 

Over the past 12 months, St. Louis has added ~2600 units and absorbed about 2500. KC added about 5800 and absorbed 4000.  Indianapolis added 2,736 units and absorbed 4,050. Indianapolis is the clear leader when it comes to delta added vs absorbed and rent growth but St. Louis makes the list? I have a feeling that website just does not track nearly as many units as the actual real estate databases or name brand apartment finders.