The Radix Review: Multifamily Trends Explained

While 2025 might be in the rearview mirror, many of its economic trends carry into 2026. These are a few to watch that influence demand for multifamily. Can the labor market rebound and spur household formation? It was one of the biggest disappointments of last year, with essentially no job growth after April. Supply will be lower than recent peaks, but it won’t completely disappear. Many markets...

The year ended with a strong reading for U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) growth. Last week, the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced its preliminary reading of 4.3% annual growth in GDP for Q3 2025. It significantly outperformed expectations and was the highest in two years. The government shutdown happened after the reporting period, and it will impact the Q4 GDP results. Still, it indicated a...

Existing home sales rose for the third consecutive month in November based on data from the National Association of Realtors. The seasonally adjusted total of 4.13 million homes sold in the last year was the highest since February, but it remained well below prior norms. From 2013 to 2023, existing home sales typically eclipsed 5 million per year. An article published by the Wall Street Journal no...

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its initial estimates for November’s job growth. Nationally, employers added a total of 64,000 jobs for the month, but other details in the report pointed towards a weakening labor market as the year ends. The unemployment rate increased to 4.6%, the highest in more than four years. In the last six months, the U.S. has only created a total of 100,000 ne...

The Fed cut interest rates by 25 basis points today, putting the target federal funds rate in the range of 3.50% to 3.75%. The recent peak was 5.25% to 5.50% in July 2023. Additional cuts in the near term could be more difficult as the committee members were already divided on this decision to lower rates. More data indicating substantial weakness in the labor market and economy will likely be nee...

This week, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released its latest outlook for U.S. and worldwide growth for 2026. The general sentiment is that economic growth will remain positive next year, but it will moderate in the U.S. and most other countries. GDP in the U.S. is projected to slow from 2.0% in 2025 to 1.7% in 2026. Headline consumer price growth in the U.S., al...

Labor market reports released after the government shutdown present a mixed picture for the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision on December 10. On a positive note, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 119,000 new jobs were added in September on a seasonally adjusted basis, more than double what many economists expected, but there was a downward revision of 33,000 jobs combined for Jul...

As part of the wide-ranging impact of the government shutdown, many standard economic reports were not published during the last several weeks. Even though alternative sources were leveraged for some indicators, the situation still created uncertainty for markets and policymakers. Now that the government has reopened, key reports for September and October 2025 are rescheduled for release starting...

As of the production of this report, it appeared the U.S. government was on the brink of re-opening, which will hopefully improve the outlook for consumers. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index for November 2025 was almost at a record low based on preliminary data, just above the reading from mid-2022 when inflation spiked. Pessimistic consumers are typically concerned about their...

The typical first-time home buyer in the U.S. was 40 years of age, an all-time high, according to an annual report released this week from the National Association of Realtors. The surveys were based on transactions between July 2024 and June 2025. Additionally, only 21% of purchases were from first-time buyers, an all-time low and roughly half of the 2007 figure. From a multifamily perspective, r...

This week’s top stories presented a stark contrast: record highs on Wall Street alongside high-profile layoff announcements. Meanwhile, the Fed is set to decide on interest rates without all the normal data at its disposal due to the ongoing government shutdown. Hiring totals have been weak for U.S. companies, but terminations have largely been slow as well. This week, UPS said it cut 48,000 jobs...

Based on a Wall Street Journal report, the number of unemployment claims filed by federal workers jumped significantly in early October. The federal government remained closed as of the publication of this report, but unemployment insurance claims are reported by state offices.  In the week prior to the shutdown, only 588 federal government workers filed an initial unemployment claim. That number...

The Wall Street Journal published the results from its quarterly survey of economists this week. Overall, the group projected the economy will continue to grow, unemployment will remain low, but job growth will be weak in the near term.    Focusing on the last point, 57 economists submitted their U.S. job growth projections for the next 12 months. The average for the group was approximately 50,000...

The ongoing government shutdown continues to dominate news cycles on a variety of fronts. One of its impacts last week was the lack of a national jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In its absence, many are turning to alternative measures to monitor the health of the job market.  ADP reported that private-sector employment declined by 32,000 jobs in September. The company processes th...

With Q3 2025 wrapping up this week, the most notable performance stat for the quarter was the deceleration in rent growth. At the U.S. level, annual effective rent growth slowed from 1.2% at the beginning of the quarter to 0.6% in the last two weeks of September.  Now, the focus turns to how fundamentals change in Q4, and how that impacts the outlook for 2026.  Listen to this week's report fo...

Annual effective rent growth slowed to 0.6% at the U.S. level in this week's report. After peaking at 1.2% in July, rent growth has gradually decelerated, suggesting demand has softened by some degree relative to this time last year. Listen to this week's report for the full story! Explore our webpage for more insights and resources: https://bit.ly/Radix_Website

Multifamily operational performance remained in line with recent weeks. Annual effective rents were up 0.8%, but practically all of the gain occurred at the beginning of the year.  Also in this week's report, key economic headlines related to inflation, mortgage rates, and layoffs. Listen to this week's report for more! Explore our webpage for more insights and resources: https://bit.ly/...

Budget bootcamps are underway, and this week's reports has the latest operational trends by market. Rent growth is ticking down, and occupancy will be starting 2026 at a lower rate in many markets.  Also, in this week's summary we review the latest massive revisions to job growth that were released a week ahead of the Fed's major decision on interest rates.  Listen to this week&apos...

A new forecast released last week shows three industries will outperform for job growth during the next decade. The tech, health care, and energy sectors are expected to grow at a faster pace than the national average. A slower pace of overall job growth will likely influence how much new supply is needed, and in which locations.  As for the latest week’s operational results for multifamily, annua...

Ahead of Friday's release of the national jobs report from the BLS, multiple articles this week have focused on AI's impact on the job market, including for recent college graduates.  Listen to this week's report for a summary, as well as the latest multifamily results.  Explore our webpage for more insights and resources: https://bit.ly/Radix_Website Explore our webpage for more in...

The latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed several markets in the Carolinas at the top of the list for job growth, including Charleston, Raleigh, Charlotte, and Columbia. Wilmington and Greenville also outperformed the national average. Overall, it should be a boost for multifamily demand in the region.  Listen to this week's report for more notes on the job growth rank...

Annual effective rent growth improved to 1.2% at the U.S. level last week. While that is considered modest by historical standards, it is the strongest national growth rate since the end of 2022. See this week's report for the latest trends for multifamily, as well as the latest numbers for inflation which could impact operating costs and rent growth... Explore our webpage for more insights a...

Multifamily operational performance has been very steady at the national level. Annual effective rent growth has held steady at 1.0% throughout June, and the occupancy rate appears to be peaking at just above 93.7%... Explore our webpage for more insights and resources: https://bit.ly/Radix_Website

U.S. job growth was better than expected for May, but there were 279,000 fewer jobs created during the first five months of 2025 compared to 2024. That has likely been one of the reasons occupancy rates have not rebounded in many markets the way we expected them to this year... Explore our webpage for more insights and resources: https://bit.ly/Radix_Website

Heading into the summer, most multifamily markets showed significant improvements compared to a year ago. At that point, rent growth was still deteriorating and supply had yet to peak in many markets. While effective rent growth is far from robust in most places, it's positive in most places. While effective rents were still below last year's level in several markets at the end of May, t...