The Apartment Disconnect
The Wall Street Journal's Development's blog notes the same problem with apartments that I've noticed.  Defaults keep rising on apartment CMBS debt, but apartments still command price premiums due to their perceived safety.  Apartments have the highest CMBS default, at 16.6%, topping even lodging's 14.6%, and the apartment default rate is much higher than the CMBS default rate of 9.4%.  I have seen plenty of large apartment investment funds over the past several years that have ranged from bad to scary.  I have seen two interesting private placement deals that are buying below the radar (i.e. small) multifamily deals.