Birmingham’s vacancy is the highest it has been in more than 25 years, and its per-unit pricing is the lowest of any market in this entire series. Those two facts, together, are precisely why a disciplined, patient allocator would look here rather than look away
August 2026
Mid-2026 Outlook
Longview Commercial’s bi-annual, institutional-grade market intelligence publication — designed to give accredited investors, whether new to private real estate funds or experienced in direct asset ownership, a clear, unvarnished view of the markets we target for deployment.
Each edition focuses on a single metropolitan market, assessed across the dimensions that matter most: demographic momentum, employment health, supply/demand dynamics, capital flows, and submarket selectivity. Our goal is not simply to share data, but to translate that data into investment context relevant to a diversified multifamily portfolio.
Birmingham, Alabama serves as our twelfth edition and the first Alabama market in this series in the Longview portfolio strategy. As one of the nation’s most dynamic Sunbelt metros, Birmingham exemplifies both the opportunity and the nuance that sophisticated multifamily investing demands. The following pages present our mid-2026 assessment.
Longview Commercial specializes in constructing diversified institutional-quality multifamily portfolios for accredited and sophisticated investors. This report delivers an independent, data-driven assessment of the Birmingham multifamily sector as of mid-2026, focusing on metrics that signal market health, investment viability, and long-term positioning
Sources: Yardi Matrix, CoStar Group, Northmarq, Colliers. Data as of Q1–Q2 2026.
Birmingham’s vacancy rate reached approximately 13.0–13.7% in the most recent readings — the highest level in more than 25 years, and well above the national average. Rent growth, which peaked near 9% year over-year in 2022, has turned modestly negative, with asking rents averaging approximately $1,190–$1,300 per month, well below the national average of roughly $1,750–1,760.
The offsetting signal is the size of the correction on the supply side: Birmingham’s construction pipeline has contracted from a peak of more than 3,000 units at the end of 2022 to as few as 520 units by late 2025, with only 270 units breaking ground in all of 2024. Average price per unit (~$119,000) is the lowest of any market in this series — roughly a third of Charlotte’s and less than a quarter of Miami’s.
Within the Longview portfolio, Birmingham is the smallest, most deeply discounted market in this series — a genuine secondary market allocation rather than a Sunbelt gateway metro, offering a fundamentally different risk-and-basis profile than Atlanta, Miami, or Charlotte.
The seven-county Birmingham-Hoover MSA, Alabama’s largest metropolitan area, reached approximately 1.19–1.2 million residents as of 2024. The core city of Birmingham itself (known as “The Magic City”) is considerably smaller, with the surrounding suburbs of Hoover, Vestavia Hills, and Bessemer forming a substantial share of the metro’s population and multifamily demand
The Birmingham metro supports more than 575,000 jobs across a diversified base. Unemployment has been cited as low as 2.2% in late 2025 data — among the lowest readings of any market in this series, though we note this figure runs meaningfully below other regional unemployment estimates and should be confirmed against primary Bureau of Labor Statistics data before being relied upon directly. Birmingham should add approximately 3,700 jobs through 2026–2027, per one regional forecast.
One of the more diversified economies of any smaller market in this series: financial services (Regions Financial Corporation and Vulcan Materials are both headquartered in Birmingham), healthcare and medical research (the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the state’s largest employer, with an annual economic impact exceeding $12.1 billion), and advanced manufacturing tied to electric-vehicle supply chains (over $725 million in mobility-related investment since 2018, led by Mercedes-Benz’s partnerships with UAB and Alabama Power). Birmingham was also named a federally designated Tech Hub region in 2025, receiving a $44 million grant to support the Birmingham Biotechnology Hub, and is home to Innovation Depot, the largest techcentric startup complex in the American Southeast.
Birmingham is home to at least two Fortune 500 headquarters — Regions Financial Corporation and Vulcan Materials — a modest but genuine concentration for a market of this size, reinforced by a deep bench of large private and institutional employers including UAB, Wells Fargo, Amazon, St. Vincent’s Health System, Children’s of Alabama, AT&T, and Honda Manufacturing of Alabama.
Birmingham’s median household income runs in the low-to-mid $60,000s, with rents that are structurally the most affordable of any market in this series. This affordability, combined with UAB’s stabilizing presence as the region’s largest employer, provides a durable, if modest-growth, renter demand base distinct from the higher-velocity migration stories driving several other markets in this series.
A genuinely dramatic recent improvement, though the longer trend is more mixed. Birmingham police reported 11 homicides yearto- date through Q1 2026 with a 100% clearance rate, a 48% decline versus the same period in 2025 and 72% versus 2024’s record pace — figures independently verified by the nonpartisan Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama (PARCA). That said, PARCA also found that total criminal incidents were higher in 2025 than in 2024, and that overall violent crime (driven by assaults) actually increased in 2025 even as homicides fell — a genuinely nuanced picture worth underwriting carefully rather than taking the homicide statistic alone as a complete safety signal.
Overall, Birmingham combines the lowest cost basis, one of the most dramatic recent homicide-reduction stories, and a diversified, UAB-anchored economy of any market in this series — set against the highest vacancy rate in more than a quarter century and the smallest, least liquid transaction market Longview currently tracks.
2022 Construction Pipeline Peak
~3,000+ units
Late-2025 Pipeline
~520 units
Birmingham is the smallest, most deeply discounted market in this series by every measure — price per unit, transaction volume, and metro population. That combination is exactly why it functions differently in a diversified portfolio than the larger Sunbelt gateway metros: less liquidity and a genuine secondary-market risk premium, offset by a cost basis and construction-pullback severity with no real parallel among the larger markets Longview tracks.
CURRENT (2026)
Vacancy sits at its highest level in more than 25 years, the product of a construction wave that
peaked at over 3,000 units in the pipeline at the end of 2022.
2024 marked the first year in over six quarters that absorption outpaced new deliveries, though
more recent 2025 data shows vacancy continuing to worsen in specific submarkets.
Transaction volume remains modest by national standards, with cap rates near 7.0% reflecting the market’s smaller scale and lower liquidity relative to larger metros in this series.
5-YEAR OUTLOOK ( 2031)
With the pipeline down to as few as 520 units and only 270 starts in 2024, the supply side of the equation has corrected sharply, setting up conditions for a 2026–2027 stabilization if demand holds.
Downtown Birmingham’s residential occupancy rose from 82.2% in early 2024 to 86.9% by year-end, alongside a 10.2% increase in downtown employee presence — a genuine urban-core resurgence signal.
Average price per unit of approximately $119,000 offers a meaningfully lower entry basis than any other market Longview currently tracks.
10-YEAR OUTLOOK
UAB’s scale and stability as the region’s largest employer, combined with Birmingham’s broader healthcare, finance, and advanced-manufacturing base, provide a demand floor distinct from purely migration-dependent Sunbelt growth stories.
Submarkets with the heaviest recent supply (Bessemer/Fairfield, Homewood, Hoover/Vestavia Hills) should take longer to stabilize than downtown and other lighter-pipeline corridors.
Patient, well-capitalized buyers able to underwrite a longer hold and accept lower liquidity may find Birmingham’s basis genuinely attractive relative to its larger Sunbelt peers.
Construction pipeline,2022 peak vs. late 2025 — one of the sharpest pullbacks in this series
3,000+ → ~520
2024 construction starts — a multi- decade low
270 units
Vacancy—thehighest level in more than 25 years
13.0–13.7%
Average asking rent—the most affordable market in this series
~$1,190–1,300
Average price per unit — the lowest basis of any market in this series
~$119,000
Cap rates —50–100 bps above the national
average
~7.0%
Birmingham-Hoover MSA population (2024)— Alabama’s largest metro
~1.19–1.2M
Unemployment Rate: Low (~3% range; state AL ~3.0% in May 2026)
~3%
Job Growth
Stable/moderate
Homicide decline, early 2026 vs. 2025 and 2024 respectively (independently verified by PARCA)
-48% to -72%
Key Notes/Drivers: Healthcare, manufacturing, finance, and professional services. Resilient with diversified base.
Daniel Corporation, headquartered in Birmingham for more than 60 years, has developed or managed approximately 20,000 multifamily units and 20 million square feet of commercial space across the Southeast and Sunbelt regions.
The Dobbins Group, headquartered in nearby Homewood, has been among the most active recent developers in the metro, delivering projects including Colina West Homewood and the 475-unit Colina Hillside. Evernest, a Birmingham-based property management firm, manages more than 14,000 properties for over 6,000 owners across the region.
Transaction activity remains modest and dominated by
private buyers, including notable recent trades such as the $47.1 million sale of Stonegate Apartments and the earlier $111 million sale of Ridge Crossing to Canada-based Avenue Living. Longview Commercial structures diversified portfolios to give investors access to institutional-quality multifamily without concentrating risk in any single metro’s scale or liquidity profile.
Submarket
Profile & Theme
Longview View
Downtown Birmingham
Residential occupancy rose from 82.2% in early 2024 to 86.9% by year-end, alongside a 10.2% increase in downtown employee presence — a genuine urbancore resurgence, even as downtown remains a focal point for new deliveries.
Favorable
Outlying Jefferson County & Bessemer/Fairfield
Attracting renters seeking affordability, though Bessemer/Fairfield specifically saw some of the metro’s sharpest recent rent declines following substantial new completions.
Selective
Hoover/Vestavia Hills &
Homewood
Among the submarkets with the heaviest recent supply and sharpest annual rent declines (−2.6% to −3.8% in one reading), representing the metro’s clearest near-term supply risk.
Cautious
Submarket views reflect qualitative positioning drawn from broker and proprietary market research as of mid-2026. Granular submarket-level rent and occupancy data were not available at point-estimate resolution for this edition and are flagged rather than estimated.
Birmingham in 2026 is the smallest and most deeply discounted market Longview currently tracks — vacancy at a 25-year high, rents modestly negative, and a per-unit price basis roughly a third of Charlotte’s. The countervailing case is real: a construction pipeline collapsed from over 3,000 units to as few as 520, a stabilizing UAB-anchored economy, and a dramatic recent homicidereduction story, tempered by a more nuanced overall crime picture. Within a diversified allocation, Birmingham functions as a genuine secondary-market, deep-value complement to the larger gateway metros — appropriate for patient capital accepting lower liquidity for a meaningfully lower entry basis.
Longview Commercial is positioned to help accredited investors access high-quality, professionally managed multifamily exposure in this evolving market. All projections involve uncertainty; investors should conduct independent due diligence and consult offering documents.
Website: www.longviewcommercial.com
