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- Takeaways from NMHC Annual Meeting: Who wants a loan?
Takeaways from NMHC Annual Meeting: Who wants a loan?
Abundance of debt capital is providing a soft landing for owners with maturing loans, and depriving buyers hunting for high-quality assets at big discounts.
Jay Parsons
January 29, 2026
Today’s edition sponsored by: JPI, Madera Residential, Foxen, Authentic, Landing and Mason Joseph.
Here are some thoughts and observations from the NMHC Annual Meeting, the apartment industry’s biggest annual get-together.
And for a deep dive on what potential distress could look like for multifamily in 2026, check out this week’s episode of The Rent Roll podcast, featuring Michael Comparato of Benefit Street Partners, on Spotify or Apple.
#1: Debt is abundantly available and at increasingly attractive terms – and that is having a number of implications on the market.
Lenders are in pursuit mode. Borrowers (with institutional-quality assets under control) are the bell of the ball. Debt funds are very eager to deploy capital and seem to recognize they’re not going to get the juicy terms they expected when those funds were raised.
Some borrowers are giddy over terms they’re getting, including for preferred equity, and pushing lenders on speed and flexibility.
Higher-quality assets (newer vintages in good locations) are recapitalizing with attractive terms and generous valuations (baking in future growth?), limiting the pain for sponsors (though it’s rarely pain free, of course, given drop in values from peak tied to rates) and allowing them to wait out better times to exit. Easy path for debt funds to deploy capital, and many are equipped (eager?) for loan-to-own if borrowers default.
Side note: This is also why the so-called “wall of maturities” always looks scarier on a chart than in real life.
Abundance of debt = abundance of recaps = limited sales transactions. Mindset remains: Why sell now at a discount unless you have to.
#2 Buyers (equity capital) still patient, not expanding the buy box much.
Nearly everyone with equity to deploy is still targeting well-located newer-vintage assets – or maybe stretching to older vintages if in strong submarkets. That’s a very liquid market with some deals transacting in the 4s again, but it’s also a very thin market in terms of deal volume. More buyers than sellers (thanks to the recap activity).
For some would-be buyers with dry powder to deploy, I don’t know that reality has sunk in that (barring an epic collapse) they’re not gonna buy a lot of high-quality assets for quarters on the dollar. The problem is they’ve raised capital for the premise such deals would be widely available at huge discounts to replacement cost. But by now it should be obvious that most of those types of deals with maturing loans are recapitalizing rather than selling due to the abundance of available debt.
What does hit the market (in that profile) trades at a premium, and those buyers are accepting weak Year 1 yields on the promise of a great basis and a longer-term hold with a flexible exit strategy.
So where does that capital go? We’ll see. Some are now entertaining a very narrow value-add strategy focused on 2000s- or maybe 1990s-vintage deals in good submarkets. The problem is we just didn’t build all that many apartments in the 1990s and 2000s, so that’s not a deep pool. Others may consider 1980s-vintage deals if well located; but while there’s a lot more 1980s product, much of it (particularly in Sun Belt) is located in less-desirable, economically challenged submarkets.
Some capital is targeting new development again, hoping to deliver in 2027-28 when supply is thin. But only for development deals that check every box. That’s good news for larger, well-capitalized developers with efficiencies of scale, but it’s still exceptionally unlikely we’ll see a wave of starts sniffing peak levels of 2022-23. For most developers, debt is still more readily available than equity.
Bottom line is today’s buyer pool is far more disciplined (and more narrow) than in 2021-23.
#3: Who is the buyer for actual distress?
I still can’t figure out who will be buyers (at any scale) for older-vintage deals in weak submarkets. That’s also the stuff that is less likely to get recapped, and will probably face a reckoning on value.
The types of groups who would buy those deals are mostly sidelined trying to hold onto similar assets, and their investor base has been fatigued by capital calls and unable to recycle capital into new deals.
That’ll be a big storyline at some point, but probably won’t be systematic on the broader multifamily market. The spreads between A’s and C’s will likely just further expand.
On that note: Check out this week’s episode of The Rent Roll podcast, titled, “Where’s all the Distress?” with a special guest who has a front-row seat to it all, Michael Comparato of Benefit Street Partners. Find it on YouTube, Spotify, Apple and Amazon.
#4: On sentiment across the industry: One friend described it as “neutral,” and I think that’s a good take.
The mood at NMHC didn’t feel especially bullish or bearish. It was rather “more of the same,” or maybe just reality settling in that as much as everyone loves the long-term tailwinds, the short-term headwinds are still very real.
Like the last couple years, a lot of folks are hoping the second half of 2026 is better than the first half – both for fundamentals and for transactions.
#5: On fundamentals: More of the same. It’s a renters’ market.
Some green shoots, but still challenging – particularly in higher-supplied markets.
Prospective renters today are like car shoppers who expect to pay below MSRP. The high-supply, high-concession environment has conditioned them to expect a deal.
Some concessions should burn off as supply dwindles here in 2026 (allowing for some effective rent growth), but even the most bullish operators recognize those concessions won’t just “burn off” in one leasing cycle.
— My Latest Posts on LinkedIn —
Here are some recent posts if you missed them:
Who will be the buyer (at scale) of older vintage apartments in weak submarkets? There isn’t an obvious answer, but that could become a big storyline soon.
Here are 20 apartment markets where we could see gain-to-lease be a challenge here in 2026.
Here are some takeaways, open questions and implications from President Trump’s executive order on institutional single-family investors.
In a twist of irony, just days before President Trump announced a proposed ban on institutional investors in single-family homes, the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association awarded a paper titled: “The Impact of Institutional Investors on Homeownership and Neighborhood Access”
Apartment operators will probably hear a lot more about “gain to lease” and “inverted rent rolls” here in 2026.
Newly released inflation data shows rents continue to cool, and that’ll likely remain the story for CPI Shelter in 2026 due to lag effects.
This article in The Wall Street Journal shows us why the best tenant protection is to build a lot more housing.
Here’s everything we know (and don’t know) about President Trump’s proposed ban on institutional investors from buying houses.
There are many proposed flaws in the arguments for banning institutions from buying houses, starting with the myth that single-family rental supply is increasing as investors take houses into the rental market.
— Now Spinning on The Rent Roll Podcast —
For 2025, The Rent Roll with Jay Parsons podcast ranked in Spotify’s top 2% of podcasts for minutes played and in the top 1% for most shared shows. Additionally, The Rent Roll continues to frequently rank on Apple’s charts for investing-themed podcasts, and was recently ranked as the third-best podcast in all commercial real estate (and #1 in housing) by the readers of CRE Daily!
Thank you to everyone who’s made The Rent Roll part of your weekly routine! New episodes are released every Thursday morning.
Episode 69: Where’s All the Distress? with Benefit Street Partners’ Michael Comparato
Episode 68: Q1’26 Multifamily Update and Outlook with RealPage’s Carl Whitaker
Episode 67: Top 10 Myths About Institutional Investors in Housing with Baruch College’s Joshua Coven.
Episode 66: Q1'26 SFR/BTR Update and Outlook with NexMetro’s Josh Hartmann
Episode 65: 15 Predictions for Apartments and SFR in 2026 with JBREC’s John Burns
Episode 64: What I Got Wrong (and Right!) in 2025 … Plus a multifamily capital markets update with Newmark’s Mike Wolfson
Episode 63: Green Shoots in Multifamily? Maybe. With CAPREIT’s Andrew Kadish
Episode 62: How Greystar Sees Property Management with Greystar’s Toni Eubanks
Episode 61: A.I. and Rental Housing with Funnel’s Tyler Christiansen
