The Rent Roll with Jay Parsons

After avoiding public comment for weeks after the White House announced it proposed ban on institutional investors buying homes, the single-family rental REITs now enter the spotlight for earnings call season. How are they responding? Rental housing economist Jay Parsons shares the answer as part of his seven takeaways from the SFR REITs' recent earnings calls. One key: Increased emphasis on the pre-existing strategy of selling older homes and recycling capital into new build-to-rent construction. Additionally, Jay shares color from the REITs on slowed leasing and softening rents for the SFR sector broadly, and what that could mean for the 2026 outlook. Additionally, Jay discusses headlines from a busy news week for rental housing — including another multifamily REIT taken private, a potential apartment rent rebound in Austin, and more evidence of the positive impact of new "luxury" supply on rent affordability. Later in the program, Jay welcomes in Principal Asset Management's Rich Hill, senior managing director and global head of real estate research and strategy. Rich and Jay discuss public versus private valuations, where the industry is headed, and where investment opportunities could exist for rental housing over the next cycle. Rich shares his take on single-family rentals, apartments and student housing.

As New York City's new mayor pushes a rent freeze on the city's beleaguered rent stabilized apartments, a new voice is emerging from the landlord side — and it happens to be the guy who sat next to Zohran Mamdani in the New York state legislature. Meet Kenny Burgos, a former state legislator who is now the CEO of the New York Apartment Association. Kenny has taken a fresh, pragmatic approach to the rent control debate — highlighting data, logic and real-life examples over short-form videos on social media in a way that could be a template for others across the country trying to respond to disproven policy ideas. In addition to the conversation with Kenny, Jay Parsons also shares a brief version of New York's 100+ years of rent control, and how continued tightening has only exacerbated challenges for renters. Also in this episode, Jay shares the latest headlines impacting single-family rentals and introduces a new segment to the podcast called "Good News."

The big six apartment REITs just wrapped up their Q4 2025 earnings calls. Rental housing economist Jay Parsons shares the seven key themes and takeaways from those calls — and what these trends might mean for the broader multifamily market. Those themes include improvement in multifamily fundamentals headed into the spring leasing season (including some initial reduction in concessions) and yet still muted expectations for rent growth in 2026, the continued strength of New York and San Francisco coupled with lingering challenges in other coastal markets (and related news of Camden exiting California), signs of momentum in the supply-drenched Sun Belt, plus more stock buybacks as REITs continue to trade at big discounts to net asset value. Later in the program, Jay welcomes in REIT analyst Jana Galan from Bank of America Securities. Jana gives her take on the effectiveness of buybacks and how Wall Street investors see apartments today compared to other asset classes, as well as her thoughts on the eventual recovery. Additionally, Jay reviews headlines of the week impacting rental housing, and gives his take on a recent congressional hearing on housing affordability and a potential ban on large investors buying single-family homes.

What was the sentiment at the apartment industry's biggest annual get-together, the National Multifamily Housing Council's Annual Meeting? Rental housing economist shares his take on the pulse of the market as part of hig Top 5 takeaways from the event in Las Vegas. In particular, Jay shares color and insights on the wide availability of debt capital, and what implications that's having downstream for would-be sellers and would-be buyers. Jay then welcomes in Jeff Weidell, the CEO of Northmarq, one of the biggest names in multifamily capital markets. Jeff shares his thoughts on how the apartment sector could unfold in 2026, and what could result from the disconnect between buyers chasing distress and actual distress at lower quality that what most buyers want. Jeff also talks about the policy environment for multifamily finance, and how that's changing, as well as his thoughts on the potential privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And as always, Jay brings back recurring features like "Rental Housing Trivia" and "In the News" — including another myth-buster news article on the role of institutional investors in the single-family housing market.

We've been hearing about the so-called wall of maturities and looming distress in multifamily for a couple years now. So, where is it? When will it show it up? What could it look like, and what implications could it have (or not have) on the broader multifamily market? Rental housing economist Jay Parsons shares the latest on apartment distress, and how we could be seeing a mismatch between capital chasing distressed deals versus actual distressed opportunities in the market. Jay then welcomes in the head of a major apartment lender, Michael Comparato of Benefit Street Partners, to dive deeper into emerging distress. Mike shares his thoughts on how much longer lenders can stay patient, what could push more distressed deals into the market, how the emergence of debt funds have changed the game, and how distressed deals could impact the broader sector. Additionally, Jay brings back recurring segments like "In the News" — highlighting new articles on the proposed ban on institutional SFR investors as well as the increased opportunities for BTR development.