This section of the housingModel project plan provides justification for multifamily as a better investment than other types of commercial real estate. Below are four graphs that show multifamily in comparison to office, industrial, and retail. The catagories of comparison include vacancy rates, cap rates (valuation), transaction volume (liquidity), and risk premium. Multifamily consistently out performs other commercial real estate investments in all categories.

The graph below is from the National Association of Realtors' Commercial Real Estate Trends report.  It shows a 10-year comparison of vacancy rates within the commercial real estate market.  As the graph shows, multifamily has consistently outperformed other commercial property types, when it comes to having the lowest vacancy rate.

The following Cap Rate comparison and forecast is from the CBRE report titled "Steady Investment Activity Shows Commercial Real Estate Resilience". Apartments, which are shown as the dark line at the bottom of the graph, have a history of lower cap rates than other commercial investment types. The lower the cap rate, the higher the property valuation.

The following graph is from the same CBRE report as the previous graph. What is show here is the transaction volume for commercial properties. The transaction volume for multifamily is consistently higher for multifamily than other sectors. A higher transaction volume is a potential sign of increased liquidity for investments.

Risk Premium measures the increase in return that an investor requires to compensate for the increased risk associated with an investment type. As the graph shows, multifamily consistently has a lower risk premium when compared to other commercial investments. That lower risk premium is an indication that investors typically consider multifamily to be a less risky investment than other commercial real estate investments.