Two numbers from Yardi Matrix's September report belong side by side. National asking rents are up 0.7% year over year, to $1,775. Renewal rent growth is 1.7%, which Yardi says is the lowest since before 2020. The spread between those two numbers used to be your value-add. It is almost gone. The market conversation is about whether new-lease rents have bottomed, and there is a case that they have. Yardi says the third quarter posted a 0.3% gain, the first third-quarter increase in four years,...

Trepp's September numbers came out last week, and multifamily crossed a line it has not crossed since Covid. The multifamily CMBS delinquency rate hit 8.04 percent, above the overall CMBS rate of 8.02 percent, up 471 basis points in two years. Rents, meanwhile, are up 1.5 percent year over year according to Apartments.com. The apartment market is finally being priced, and the prices are not coming from appraisals. They are coming through the back door: workouts, retrades and liquidations. The...

On September 4, 2026, Mandel Group agreed to merge 13 owned and operated multifamily properties, valued at $614 million, into Cottonwood Communities, a non-traded net asset value (NAV) real estate investment trust (REIT), in exchange for units in Cottonwood's operating partnership (OP) and cash. Most coverage will file this under portfolio consolidation, a REIT buying scale and a fee stream from a private operator ready to monetize. I think there's more going on here. Both firms are also...