Apt rental brightens dim US commercial real estate

NEW YORK, March 17 (Reuters) - There is one bright spot in the dim U.S. commercial real estate market.

Demand for rental apartments is up even as the market for offices, retail space and lodging struggles, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey released on Monday.

Home buyers are having a tough time getting loans amid tighter credit standards. At the same time, prospective buyers are holding out for better prices and apartment developers have slowed or stopped their building plans, according to PricewaterhouseCooper's quarterly Korpacz Real Estate Investor Survey.

"Because you have so many people losing their homes or not able to buy homes, there's been an overall increase in the (apartment rental) sector," said Susan Smith, editor-in-chief of the study, which surveys 125 real estate investors and specialists from pension funds, mortgage bankers and insurance companies.

Rental apartments "is the only sector benefiting from what we're going through right now," she said.

Rising job losses have hurt demand for offices, while declining consumer confidence, a jump in personal bankruptcy filings and a decline in consumer spending has crimped the outlook for neighborhood shopping centers, investors told PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Those surveyed are also concerned about the outlook for national hotel space as discretionary spending declines and new room supply has accelerated.

"If we continue to see job losses, 2009 is going to be a really hard year" for commercial real estate, Smith said.

"You are not going to see the impact of job losses until leases are up next year. That means that 2008 could still be a healthy year for the commercial real estate market overall, but if we continue to have more impact from capital markets, it's not going to be good for 2009 and going into 2010." (Reporting by Chelsea Emery; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)