U.S. Department of Commerce
Economics and Statistics Administration
U.S. CENSUS BUREAU
Issued July 2006
H131/05-A
Characteristics of Apartments
Completed: Annual 2005
Current
Housing
Reports
INTRODUCTION
The Survey of Market Absorption (SOMA)
measures how soon privately fi nanced,
nonsubsidized, unfurnished units in
buildings with fi ve or more units are
rented or sold (absorbed) after comple-
tion. In addition, the survey collects
data on characteristics such as number
of bedrooms, asking rent, and asking
price.
As with all surveys, estimates may vary
from actual values because of sampling
variation or other factors. All state-
ments in this report have undergone
statistical testing and are signifi cant at
the 90-percent confi dence level.
HIGHLIGHTS1
• Preliminary estimates from the SOMA
show that, during 2005, a total of
111,900 privately fi nanced, nonsubsi-
dized, unfurnished rental apartments
in buildings of fi ve units or more were
completed in permit-issuing areas in
the United States. This total is lower
by about 43,100 from the estimated
155,000 completions in 2004. New
unfurnished rental completions in
2005 were less than similar comple-
tions in every year dating back to
1994, in which there was no statisti-
cal diff erence (Table 8).
• The South, with 51 percent, had
the largest proportion of new, un-
furnished rental completions of any
region, followed by the West, with 27
percent. The Midwest (17 percent)
ranked third, while the Northeast had
4 percent of new rental completions
in 2005 (Table 1 and Figure 1).
• Two-bedroom units were the predomi-
nant size built, accounting for about
50 percent of newly constructed
rental apartments, followed by one-
bedroom units (33 percent). The third
group comprised units with three or
more bedrooms (14 percent), and
the smallest group, effi ciencies (no
bedrooms), accounted for 3 percent
of new 2005 rental completions
(Table 1).
• The median monthly asking rent for
all unfurnished rental apartments
completed in