A flock of construction cranes have taken up temporary residence in New Orleans as a building boom is underway. New apartment and condominium buildings are going up throughout the Warehouse District.
"They're mostly using up vacant spaces like parking lots or they're using abandoned buildings that are on the sites," Real Estate Specialist Wade Ragas says old structures are getting renovated as well thanks to historic structure tax breaks.
The market for apartment construction is so strong, its responsible for pushing new home starts numbers, up 12.3 in August. That translates to 1.3-million homes under construction, the highest number in 12-years.
"The current extraordinary low interest rates is a huge subsidy for commercial investors and apartment investors to enter the market while interest rates are at their lowest in nearly a century."
And a lot of the new builds feature resort like amenities like roof top pools with cabanas, workout centers, business centers, entertainment centers featuring motion picture size screens and movie theatre seats. Developers are packing their developments so they can command top dollar for their rentals or condos.
"Today it takes a rent of $2.20 to $2.40 a square foot a month to cover the cost of creating new construction," Ragas says. "So its the rent you need to be able to pay for development is substantial and today some of the properties are so luxurious you need more than that."