Who’s building apartments in the U.S.? Top developers and cities in a 1.2M-unit pipeline

Apartment construction likely peaked in the first half of the decade, with more than 3.2 million units completed from 2020 through 2025. Construction has slowed since, but the market remains active, with new supply concentrated in the South, the largest cities and a group of fast-growing smaller markets. About 1.2 million units are currently under construction and scheduled for delivery through 2030.

Momentum has likely been affected by macroeconomic factors, including supply chain disruptions, still-high construction costs and elevated interest rates, all against a backdrop of high supply, especially in the Sun Belt. But not all regions show the same impact, and many of the nation’s major markets continue to build to meet the growing demand for housing.

To see where multifamily is booming and which companies are rising to the challenge of expanding rental stock, we tapped into Yardi Matrix data and analyzed construction pipelines across 3,498 cities, looking at apartment buildings with 50+ units. To compare scales fairly, we grouped locations into small cities (50,000-249,000), midsize cities (250,000-499,000) and big cities (500,000+). We ranked them by under-construction multifamily inventory from 2026 to 2030. We also looked at population change and top multifamily owners nationally and by city.

Greystar, one of the largest multifamily owners by existing inventory, also has the largest development pipeline in the country, with more than 15,500 units scheduled for delivery by 2030.

Regionally, the South remains the most active region in the country, while NYC leads upcoming delivery volumes, with over 54,000 apartments under construction.

Top developers building America’s apartments: Greystar tops the multifamily under-construction list

The housing landscape is not an easy one to navigate these days. Construction costs sit well above pre-pandemic levels, insurance renewals keep resetting pro formas mid-deal and the stretch between entitlement and stabilized occupancy has gotten longer in most major metros. Financing still prices in a higher-for-longer rate environment. Put it together, and the math on a new community is tighter than it has been in years, which is exactly why the pipeline has narrowed to the operators who can absorb that pressure and keep building.

And yet over 3,350 developers hold a position in the national multifamily pipeline, which covers roughly 1.2 million units under construction with estimated deliveries between 2026 and 2030. About 28% of those developers own no multifamily inventory in buildings with 50 or more units today and will, by the end of the decade, be entering the market at its most expensive point in a generation.

At the other end, the top 10 — led by Greystar, Mill Creek Residential, NRP Group, Wood Partners, JPI and Vivmark Residential — collectively account for about 7% of all supply under construction.

Greystar tops the developer rankings for apartment construction scheduled from 2026 through 2030, with more than 15,500 units underway. More than 8,000 of those apartments are expected to be delivered across the South by the end of the decade.

The company ranks first in Maryland for upcoming multifamily supply and second in California, with more than 740 units scheduled for delivery in San Diego. Greystar also has sizable pipelines in Austin, Texas, and Charlotte, North Carolina. In Maryland, it is building in Bethesda and Baltimore. The current pipeline continues a decade of rapid expansion. Between 2015 and 2025, Greystar added nearly 58,000 units, accounting for more than half of its total inventory.

Mill Creek Residential ranks second, with more than 9,000 units in its active development pipeline, equivalent to roughly one-third of its existing inventory. Nashville is its busiest market, with nearly 1,200 apartments planned through 2030. The company also has about 560 units underway in Washington, D.C., giving it the city’s second-largest development pipeline.

Overall, Mill Creek’s pipeline spans 27 cities, split evenly between the South and West with 11 markets each, plus five in the Northeast. One of the nation’s leading apartment developers, Mill Creek added 26,000 units — the large majority of its current inventory — between 2015 and 2025.

NRP Group ranks third, with more than 8,800 units scheduled for delivery between 2026 and 2030, equivalent to over one-third of its existing inventory. It is the second-most active developer in the South, where more than 6,700 units are expected to come online.

Texas accounts for 11 of NRP Group’s 24 development locations, including six in the Dallas metro. Austin represents its largest pipeline, with more than 920 apartments slated for delivery by the end of the decade.

Wood Partners ranks fourth, with close to 8,300 units in the pipeline, representing 40% of its total inventory. The developer is currently most active in the South, which accounts for 17 of its 24 cities and over 6,000 units under construction. Nashville leads individual cities with about 650 units, followed closely by Durham with a similar level of construction. Across the board, Wood Partners has substantial construction activity in Texas, with activity concentrated around Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth. Additional projects in San Antonio and Tomball extend its presence across several of Texas’ major metro areas.

Dallas-based JPI has nearly 8,250 units in its development pipeline through 2030. Those additions would more than double the company’s existing inventory of approximately 5,320 apartments.

JPI’s activity is heavily concentrated in its home market. Twelve of its 19 development locations are in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, including Fort Worth, Grand Prairie and Anna. The region has emerged as one of the country’s leading migration destinations. The pipeline follows a decade of rapid growth for JPI. More than 5,300 units, nearly all of its current inventory, came online between 2015 and 2025.

Vivmark Residential, formed through the August 2026 merger of Equity Residential and AvalonBay Communities, has nearly 7,960 units scheduled for delivery by 2030. More than 3,000 of those are in the Northeast, with New Jersey emerging as a key focus.

Four of the company’s five New Jersey projects are in commuter suburbs serving the NYC employment market, offering access to Manhattan from lower-density communities. Vivmark’s largest single-city pipeline, however, is in Durham, North Carolina, where 930 apartments are expected to come online by the end of the decade.

Trammell Crow Residential, Core Spaces, Alliance Residential Company and High Street Residential round out the most active developers, each with more than 7,000 units scheduled for delivery from 2026 through 2030. Rather than placing single bets on standalone cities, they’re spreading projects across several connected submarkets within large, growing metros. Most of that activity is in suburban job centers and outer-ring communities, in line with the outward housing expansion trend.

Trammell Crow Residential has the strongest Western and coastal exposure in the group. It pairs selective urban and infill projects with a larger suburban footprint and about three-quarters of its locations are suburbs, outer-growth areas or secondary centers tied to major job markets.

Which cities are getting the most new apartments? The South leads, but NYC tops the list

The South is leading development across all city tiers, whether we’re talking big, midsize or small cities. Sustained moving activity is expanding the renter pool, while continued economic development and strong job markets are attracting more residents. Together, these factors are reinforcing housing demand and supporting multifamily development across markets of all sizes.

Still, outliers like NYC and Jersey City, New Jersey, stand out, with their ongoing construction activity pointing to strong Northeast fundamentals.

Apartment construction spans all major cities, with NYC in the lead

New supply is concentrated in large, growing metros, but its impact varies. In some, like NYC, construction falls well short of local demand, while parts of the Sun Belt are still absorbing recent deliveries.

NYC leads in underway supply, with over 54,000 units expected to come online by 2030. However, considering the limited apartment availability relative to local demand, the 2026-2030 pipeline reads more like a partial down payment on the city’s housing needs.

Local dynamics have long kept living preferences tilted toward renting, and a 9.9% population increase from 2020 to 2024 only added to market pressure. In 2025, roughly 19,600 units entered the market — the peak of a decade that saw about 115,000 units delivered.

Current pipelines are led by MetroLoft Management, which is currently working on over 3,700 units. GFP Real Estate is projected to add close to 2,500 units by 2030.

With a booming job market and a relatively low cost of living, Charlotte, North Carolina, saw its population rise by 16.3% from 2020 to 2024. That growth provides a strong demand backdrop for an active pipeline, with about 23,000 units currently underway, placing Charlotte second in our ranking. Camden Property Trust leads the city’s pipeline, with approximately 770 units under construction, followed by NRP Group and Metropolitan Partnership. The city has been in a constant construction streak for the past decade, delivering over 79,000 apartment units to meet current demand.

Texas cities claim four of the top spots among the country’s largest cities. Austin ranks third, with more than 19,800 multifamily units scheduled for delivery by 2030. NRP Group leads the city’s development pipeline with more than 920 units underway, followed by High Street Residential and the Austin Affordable Housing Corporation.

Austin is also among the country’s most mobile large cities. More than one in five residents — 21.2% — moved into their current home between 2020 and 2024, a sign of steady housing demand that is consistent with the city’s construction wave.

Houston and San Antonio are also building at a strong pace, with nearly 18,000 units underway in Houston and about 13,500 in San Antonio. Both are highly mobile housing markets, with more than 17% of residents having moved into their current homes between 2020 and 2024.

Houston has the stronger recent construction record, adding more than 95,600 apartments over the past decade, compared with 64,550 in San Antonio. Fort Worth has more than 11,000 units underway and a slightly lower resident mobility rate of 14.3%.

Out West, as housing demand stays high, Los Angeles and Phoenix are expecting to add about 15,000 units each by the end of the decade. In both cities, the under-construction supply represents over 8% of their respective total multifamily inventory. In Los Angeles, Jamison Property leads the pipeline with about 2,500 units under construction, while in Phoenix, Kennedy Wilson leads with close to 1,200 units.

Florida dominates the apartment under-construction list for midsize cities

Among midsize cities, Florida claims four spots in the top 20 for multifamily units under construction. Miami, a long-standing popular relocation destination with a strong economy, leads the group, with over 15,000 units expected for delivery by 2030, representing 13% of its existing inventory. Atlantic Pacific Companies is responsible for 1,230 of those units currently under construction. The city’s population grew 16.2% from 2020 to 2024, providing an important demand backdrop for its substantial development pipeline. Overall, Miami has about 118,000 multifamily units, with over 55,000 delivered in the last decade alone.

Still in Florida, Orlando and Tampa have also seen strong population growth, with their populations each rising 20% from 2020 to 2024. Orlando has over 9,700 units under construction and Tampa more than 7,100, placing them third and fourth among midsize cities. In Orlando, Bainbridge Companies leads the pipeline, while in Tampa, Kettler has the most units under construction.

Raleigh, North Carolina, a top migration destination in the state, is also seeing continued construction activity through 2030, with over 5,800 apartment units projected to be added to the local inventory. This adds to the existing inventory of close to 93,700 units, of which more than 31,500 came online in the last decade alone. Kane Residential is the most active operator on the city’s building scene, expected to add about 980 units by 2030. Core Spaces and Greystar follow.

In the Northeast, Jersey City ranks second for construction activity among this group, with about 14,000 apartment units expected to be added to the local supply between 2026 and 2030. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, another Northeastern entry rounding out our top 20, has over 3,400 units under construction. Jersey City’s proximity to NYC and a 13% population increase from 2020 to 2024 are consistent with strong housing demand. Pittsburgh’s population rose 21% over the same period, providing a demand backdrop for its current construction activity. In Jersey City, Kushner Companies leads the pipeline, with over 1,720 units under construction. In comparison, Panepinto Development ranks second in new-stock additions, with about 1,300 units in the pipeline.

Moving to the West Coast, Irvine, California, has over 7,000 units under construction and scheduled for delivery by 2030, equal to 14.9% of its apartment inventory. Population growth (up 21.7% from 2020 to 2024) and the city’s status as a tech and college hub support housing demand. Irvine Company leads the pipeline with over 4,900 apartment units under construction, followed by Garden Communities with more than 1,770 units.

Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Aurora, Colorado, have over 4,400 and 3,100 units under construction, respectively, scheduled for delivery by 2030. Both cities’ populations grew more than 16% from 2020 to 2024. Blackburn Group leads the pipeline in Colorado Springs, while BMC Investments currently leads construction in Aurora. Overall, Colorado Springs has about 56,000 multifamily units, and Aurora has almost 39,000.

The South is the most active area for small cities with ongoing apartment construction

The South dominates the list of small cities (50,000 to 249,000), taking 18 of the top 20 spots for under-construction apartment inventory. Outside the South, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Tempe, Arizona, are the only entries in the top 20.

Richmond, Virginia, has the largest multifamily construction pipeline among small cities, set to deliver over 7,100 units by 2030, making up about 9% of its total inventory. The city’s main multifamily builder is Thalhimer, followed by Spy Rock Real Estate Group. The city’s population grew 16% from 2020 to 2024, according to U.S. Census data, providing a demand backdrop for that pipeline. The city has a total inventory of over 79,000 units, with close to 20,000 coming online in the last decade alone.

In Florida, strong migration is one factor fueling an active multifamily pipeline across several small cities anchoring the Orlando, Tampa and Miami metro areas. Kissimmee in the Orlando metro area and Fort Myers have over 5,000 multifamily units under construction, translating to over 16% of the existing stock in both cases. Both cities’ populations grew more than 18% from 2020 to 2024, a trend that coincides with the current construction wave. Dominium is the main operator currently adding new multifamily buildings to Kissimmee’s skyline, while in Fort Myers, ONDA Housing Group is the main apartment owner currently building. Sarasota, Florida, is expected to add over 3,000 apartment units by 2030, translating to about 16% of the city’s total multifamily supply. In Sarasota, Greystar is the most active operator, followed by Arlington Properties.

In the Miami metro area, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, registers more than 4,500 units currently under construction, projected for delivery by 2030. The city’s strong 15.6% population increase partly explains the current construction surge. In Fort Lauderdale, Hines Interests is currently adding the most apartment units.

Outside of the South, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Tempe, Arizona, are also active in the multifamily market. Close to 5,630 units are expected to come online in Salt Lake City, while in Tempe, that figure comes close to 3,500 units. For Salt Lake City, that construction level translates to a little over 12% of its existing inventory, while in Tempe it’s 8.7% of the total apartment supply. Both cities have seen strong population growth, with Tempe’s population up 25.6% and Salt Lake City’s up 20.9% from 2020 to 2024. In Salt Lake City, Lowe Property Group is leading the new apartment pipeline, while in Tempe, Core Spaces is the main operator adding the most to the city’s multifamily inventory.

Building at this scale takes operational efficiency

The apartment market is slowing but not across the board. Financing and land still decide which projects move forward, but once construction starts, success depends on keeping a project on track from first draw to stabilized NOI with full visibility into costs, timelines and leasing.

“Renter demand is only getting stronger. What’s changed is who can get a project built,” said Doug Ressler, business intelligence manager at Yardi Matrix. “Operators with strong balance sheets and established capital partners can carry a deal through a longer, costlier path from entitlement to lease-up. The ones pulling ahead have the entire ecosystem working for them, from the math on the ground and project feasibility to the broader economic factors and the technology that keeps those units occupied once they deliver.”

Developers that execute well tend to share several operational strengths, including:

• Job cost control. Budget vs. actual tracked by phase, with change orders and draw requests sitting on the same chart of accounts the asset will use after a certificate of occupancy.
• Lease-up readiness before delivery. Marketing, pricing, applications and screening live and staffed ahead of the first move-in, so absorption starts on day one rather than week six.
• One portfolio view. Development assets, stabilized communities and joint venture (JV) ownership structures reporting through a single system, so investors get consistent numbers without a spreadsheet layer in between.
• Room to scale. A platform that handles a 40-unit build-to-rent phase and a 400-unit high-rise on the same rails, so growth doesn’t force a system migration.

None of that alone closes the gap to the 4.3 million new apartments the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) and the National Apartment Association estimate the U.S. needs by 2035. Capital, zoning, land costs, labor and regulation all limit how much gets built. But once financing and entitlements are secured, operational throughput becomes another important constraint: how many projects a team can move efficiently from groundbreaking through stabilization without adding headcount for every property.

That’s the practical role property management software plays in housing growth: it carries a project across the handoff points where cost overruns and lease-up delays usually happen. Yardi supports that continuum end to end. Yardi Breeze serves growing operators, while Yardi Virtuoso Enterprise, with Yardi Voyager at its core, helps businesses streamline workflows across powerful accounting to easing every process, lease execution to resident services, streamlined reporting and performance optimization. The broader offering includes construction and job cost tracking, REACH by RentCafe marketing and online leasing through the RentCafe platform and portfolio-level reporting for owners and investors.

What the experts are saying

We’ve asked several experts with distinct vantage points on the multifamily market to share their views on the state of apartment development and where the market is headed through 2030.

Caitlin Sugrue Walter, Ph.D.

Senior Vice President & Head of Research & Innovation, National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC)

Q1: How would you characterize today’s multifamily development landscape, and what defines success for developers in the current market?

The industry is absorbing the largest wave of new supply in decades, and development has pulled back sharply in response. …
But this doesn’t mean there isn’t a need for more development — “less activity” doesn’t mean “less opportunity.” Yes, vacancy is still elevated in many Sun Belt and Mountain West metros that saw a lot of building in the last few years, but much of the Midwest and Northeast never saw that level of construction and still has low vacancy rates. … Our Market Tightness Index has been trending toward balance over the past several quarters, which tells me the supply overhang is starting to work itself through in many markets, even as national vacancy numbers still look soft.

Success in today’s market is measured differently than it was a few years ago. Rather than focusing on how many projects can start, developers are placing greater emphasis on fundamentals: securing financing in a more constrained capital environment, underwriting to realistic rent-growth expectations and carefully selecting markets and product types with the strongest long-term prospects. As a result, we’re seeing continued interest in areas like build-to-rent, workforce housing and infill locations where underlying market conditions remain favorable. In many ways, the current environment is rewarding disciplined, long-term investment decisions rather than short-term optimism.

Q2: What separates developers that continue to grow from those whose development pipelines are slowing?

Access to capital is the biggest divider. Construction lending pulled back several years ago, and it hasn’t fully normalized — banks are more selective, and the developers still growing tend to have strong balance sheets, existing relationships with equity and debt providers or agency and government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) access that lets them keep moving on deals.

Geographic and product discipline matters just as much. The firms gaining ground are generally the ones that either diversified out of the most oversupplied Sun Belt submarkets, doubled down on markets that never saw heavy pandemic-era construction or leaned into segments — affordable and workforce housing, build-to-rent — where underlying demand hasn’t slowed the way luxury Class A has in some metros. We’ve also seen some of the largest gains in starts come from developers moving into public-private and affordable-focused strategies, which tells you where much of the resilient demand is right now.

And then there’s the regulatory environment. Our research with the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) several years ago found that an average of 40.6% of total development cost could be attributed to regulations, and that number hasn’t improved. We’re seeing more municipalities layer on costly, non-safety-related design mandates — things like aesthetic requirements that add expense without improving quality or safety — at exactly the moment the industry needs projects to pencil more easily, not less.

Q3: What role is technology playing in helping large multifamily developers manage increasingly complex portfolios and development projects?

Technology is becoming essential for managing the scale and complexity of today’s multifamily development environment. Large developers increasingly rely on integrated enterprise platforms to connect development, construction, asset management, finance and operations, allowing teams to work from a common dataset rather than disconnected systems. This improves visibility into project timelines, budgets, leasing activity and portfolio performance while enabling leaders to identify issues earlier and make more informed decisions. As portfolios grow across multiple markets, technology also helps standardize processes, improve collaboration among geographically dispersed teams and reduce the operational inefficiencies of managing large development pipelines.

At the same time, developers are increasingly viewing technology as a strategic tool rather than simply an operational necessity. Business intelligence platforms, predictive analytics and AI-powered applications are helping organizations better forecast project performance, allocate capital, assess development risk and prioritize investments. The greatest value, however, comes not from adopting new technologies alone, but from supporting them with high-quality data, strong governance and effective integration across enterprise systems. As development projects become more complex and capital remains constrained, firms that can translate data into timely, actionable insights will be better positioned to manage risk, improve execution and make more disciplined long-term investment decisions.

I’d recommend anyone trying to better understand the ever more important role technology plays in the housing space take a look at NMHC’s affiliate organization, The Real Estate Technology & Transformation Center (RETTC). RETTC was created to empower real estate professionals with the tools, knowledge and networks they need to expand opportunities in their community and thrive in an increasingly digital world. 

Q4: How do you expect multifamily supply, demand and development activity to evolve over the next few years?

The near-term trajectory is consistent across our data and outside forecasters: deliveries will keep declining through 2026 and into 2027 as the pandemic-era construction wave works through the pipeline, with completions falling from the peak toward pre-pandemic norms. Multifamily starts have also pulled back and are expected to stay muted in the near term given financing costs and construction expenses that remain elevated relative to a few years ago.

That sets up an interesting dynamic. Fewer starts today mean less competing supply delivering in 2027 and 2028, which should help absorb the remaining oversupply in the hardest-hit Sun Belt and Mountain West markets and support a gradual rent-growth recovery. At the same time, renter demand and household formation haven’t gone away. While demand faces significant headwinds, we still have a shortage of millions of housing units, and about half of renter households are cost-burdened, meaning we need to both build new communities and preserve existing ones. At the same time, in places where not enough product has been built, folks may be excited about higher rent growth. And while yes, that may be good in the short term, it also proves ripe for rent control discussion, as we are seeing in more and more markets. So, my honest concern isn’t that the market overbuilt permanently — it’s that the pendulum could swing too far the other way. If starts stay this depressed for too long, we risk manufacturing a renewed shortage in high-growth markets in the back half of the decade.

We stay in this seemingly never-ending loop of supply shortage, affordability concerns and regulatory fights.

Geography will keep telling two different stories. Sun Belt and Mountain West metros that front-loaded construction will keep working through elevated vacancy for a while longer, while Midwest and Northeast markets that saw comparatively little new supply are already tighter and likely to stay that way.

Longer term, I expect capital to keep gravitating toward that undersupplied second group — toward build-to-rent and workforce and attainable housing, where the demand-supply imbalance is most acute — and toward developers who can move efficiently through entitlement and construction, because the affordability crisis is driven in part by a housing shortage in this country. It isn’t something one construction cycle, however large, was ever going to solve.

Robert J. “RJ” McGrail

Senior Fellow & Director, Accelerating Community Investment, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

Q1: How would you characterize today’s multifamily development landscape, and what defines success for developers in the current market?

Multifamily development today splits into two tracks: on one, large, institutional, well-capitalized developers with the balance sheets to build straight through this high-rate cycle. On the other, smaller and mission-driven developers, especially those serving historically disinvested communities, face high transaction costs, mismatched risk premiums and public finance partners that move too slowly to save a deal. This divide is a story about a capital system designed to allocate money efficiently toward familiar, large-scale growth markets, and inefficiently, or not at all, toward the specific housing types and places communities actually need.

This pattern is neither new nor accidental. In the 1930s, Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) residential security maps explicitly decided, block by block, which neighborhoods could accumulate value and which couldn’t, redlining Black and immigrant communities out of conventional capital for generations. As multifamily finance institutionalized, it built that legacy into its underwriting metrics: debt-service coverage ratios (DSCR), loan-to-value (LTV) thresholds and comparable-market valuations. These metrics work well for conventional apartments with predictable cash flows. They often miss the value of community-driven, mixed-use projects that rely on local relationships or mission-oriented tenants. Standard underwriting is not built to see them.

And the tools built to counteract that legacy were capped by statute from the start. Tax-exempt housing bonds run into state private-activity volume caps. Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) has a per-capita allocation ceiling. The Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) Fund and New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) run on capped annual appropriations. The correction was built undersized relative to the original wound. The result is downstream of all three: An origin that dictated where value could accumulate, underwriting standards that can’t see value outside their own metrics and policy fixes that were never funded well enough to close the gap.

The scale gap is real. Federal tools like the CDFI Program, the CDFI Bond Guarantee and the Capital Magnet Fund have collectively deployed roughly $8 billion cumulatively. Even NMTC, the largest of these programs, has moved only about $81 billion since inception. That is a rounding error against what flows through conventional institutional multifamily markets in a single year. While conventional capital stays in familiar tracks, the capital that does move through CDFIs reaches a different population: 68% people of color, 82% low-income and 25% rural, by Opportunity Finance Network’s (OFN) own numbers.

For the largest players, success is traditionally defined by scale, capital access and risk management. But I’d add a fourth metric: whether that growth produces broadly shared opportunity for residents, not just units delivered or returns achieved. That’s the measure most of the market still won’t take.

Q2: What separates developers that continue to grow from those whose development pipelines are slowing?

The developers still growing are those for whom sheer scale lowers transaction costs and absorbs risk premiums. Large platforms can absorb the underwriting, legal and policy friction that routinely stalls or kills smaller, community-preferred deals.

Developers whose pipelines are slowing lack access to patient, catalytic capital that can de-risk a deal enough for conventional lenders to follow. Instead, they face high transaction costs on small and midsize assets, a perceived risk that doesn’t match actual property performance and public finance partners without the staff or capacity to structure creative deals quickly.

The field’s own diagnosis supports this. OFN’s Innovation Initiative is 13 solution summaries explicitly focused on strengthening CDFIs’ capital, financial products, technology and data. It’s mission-aligned lenders naming their own structural and technological constraints relative to conventional capital markets. Meanwhile, the newest de-risking tools remain at pilot scale. OFN’s new Interest Rate Buydown Pilot totals just $1.5 million nationally. That tiny number is the honest measure of how early-stage these bridge-capital solutions are compared to the chasm they are meant to cross.

Alongside this, a structural shift is underway. Aggregation vehicles are worth consideration (and we’re supporting some thinking on this through ACI (Accelerating Community Investment), the initiative I lead) as a way to achieve consolidating smaller assets — i.e., naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH), manufactured housing communities and small single family rental (SFR) or multifamily portfolios in the five-to-50-unit range — under larger, better-capitalized ownership. Increasingly, scale advantage, not development skill, is what separates growth from stagnation.

Q3: What role is technology playing in helping large multifamily developers manage increasingly complex portfolios and development projects?

Large developers are leaning on data and geospatial tools to manage complexity across dispersed portfolios. Ironically, that exact data infrastructure already exists and works on the social-sector side. The National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) runs neighborhood-level data infrastructure across dozens of cities to track displacement and community change, pairing quantitative indicators with resident input through their “Data Chats” model. The infrastructure isn’t linked to how large private developers underwrite deals or report impact.

Technology excels at driving operational efficiency: underwriting speed, cost tracking, tenant management. But on its own, technology does nothing to solve the deeper capital-access problem. It doesn’t lower transaction costs on smaller deals, and it doesn’t de-risk investment in disinvested places. If anything, better data should be making the opposite case: it proves that perceived risk in these communities is wildly overstated relative to actual asset performance, meaning current pricing models are wrong.

The gap is, in fact, connectivity. The social sector already has the infrastructure to measure community benefit and long-term stewardship. No one has built the integration layer that lets large private developers use it or hold them accountable.

Q4: How do you expect multifamily supply, demand and development activity to evolve over the next few years?

Without intervention, I expect the current two-track system to persist. Capital will keep flowing efficiently to large-scale, well-capitalized developers in growth markets. Under-resourced places and smaller, mission-aligned developers will continue to face the same structural barriers they face today.

New capital structures are emerging to challenge this. “Multi-capital” strategies are trying to align traditional financial capital with civic, social, human and natural capital. Member-owned risk-pooling and credit-enhancement vehicles could test new de-risking mechanisms, while new homeownership and stewardship-oriented aggregation platforms could tackle the problem from another angle entirely. The mechanisms exist, but the scale does not.

Every one of these new ideas remains a fraction of the capital moving through conventional multifamily markets in any given year. That’s the real test ahead: can these models scale fast enough to matter before the next cycle locks the two-track system back into place?

Aspen Institute’s Community Strategies Group frames the stakes well: thriving regions are built on rural-urban interdependence, not isolated growth poles. Multifamily development doesn’t happen in a vacuum, far from where capital and people actually are. The next few years will test whether the field can operationalize that systems view, or keep gesturing at it.

Climate and resilience considerations will become a bigger factor in site selection and underwriting for large developers, not a compliance line item. Expect real capital models built around climate risk, not just disclosure requirements.
The open question for the field is whether the next real estate cycle produces more broadly shared prosperity. That depends on whether new institutional tools and policy reform can lower transaction costs and de-risk investment in the communities that need it most. It is the same question I’ve been asking for decades. The only difference now is that real capital is finally starting to test the answer.

Jacques Gordon

Director of the Graaskamp Center for Real Estate, Wisconsin School of Business

Q1: How would you characterize today’s multifamily development landscape, and what defines success for developers in the current market?

The 21st Century Road to Housing Act should modestly boost multifamily production across several market dimensions. The Act steers more capital to affordable housing production through Opportunity Zones, Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) grants and the BUILD Housing Act. New regulations for Federal Housing Administration (FHA) multifamily mortgages will increase loan limits, and an “innovation fund” for local governments is intended to create a competitive grant program for creative approaches to multifamily production. I am particularly excited to see whether the Manufactured Housing sections under Title 3 of the act will make a difference for multifamily production of modular housing, accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and FHA lending for factory-built multifamily projects.

At the same time, market-rate construction starts are down from where they were just a few years ago. Lenders have reduced proceeds. Interest rates remain elevated, and the Sun Belt markets are digesting an overhang from the construction boom years of 2022-2024. Add to that, construction crews have shrunk due to tighter restrictions on immigration and the federal crackdown on undocumented workers.

Success seems to depend on whether developers can identify reliable capital from institutional sources like investment managers, pension funds and lenders. Access to capital has become the defining feature for developers who may have to carry undeveloped land and finance infrastructure improvements longer before they can arrange financing for a new project.

Q2: What separates developers that continue to grow from those whose development pipelines are slowing?

Developers with deep experience in property management and leasing can keep growing as institutional and private equity multifamily portfolios continue to expand. Developers who lack the skills to navigate the affordable housing market and cannot fall back on property management as a steady revenue source are likely to have more difficulty surviving the next few years. The best combination for a developer is to be active in four areas: property management, acquisitions of standing investments, affordable housing and development in under-supplied markets.

Q3: What role is technology playing in helping large multifamily developers manage increasingly complex portfolios and development projects?

Technology is playing a bigger role in property management through portals that let owners, tenants, contractors and vendors communicate with management and each other. Tech is lagging in development, although that’s changing too. As labor gets scarce, more off-site and on-site technology will be used for framing and assembly. AI-assisted software is also available to help developers identify underserved markets and navigate the permitting process.

Q4: How do you expect multifamily supply, demand and development activity to evolve over the next few years?

The multifamily market will continue to benefit from advances in economies of scale, like the AvalonBay-Equity Residential merger, while also creating room for entrepreneurial “sharpshooters” who specialize in specific geographic markets or sectors like senior living. Affordable supply will get a boost from the Road to Housing Act. The development community must gradually broaden its production to include a wider range of price points, beyond luxury residential projects loaded with amenities. The multifamily development market will also reward those who can find creative solutions to the nation’s housing shortage, such as build-to-rent, infill development, reliance on modular and factory-built construction and even ADU production.

Finally, the toolkit of multifamily developers must also expand to include conversions of non-residential to residential uses, mixed-use development and the ability to work with communities to address their workforce housing needs.

Greg Salter

Senior Vice President, Capital Markets, Ryan Companies

Q1: How would you characterize today’s multifamily development landscape, and what defines success for developers in the current market?

We view this as a cyclical slowdown rather than a structural decline. Elevated interest rates and capital constraints are undeniably acting as headwinds, slowing deal flow across the board. However, the underlying fundamentals, specifically the structural need for housing, haven’t changed and continue to favor multifamily development as a leading area for maximizing the risk-reward balance.

Success is defined by developers’ ability to mitigate risk for their capital partners. When capital is cautious, investors want certainty. Because Ryan Companies handles development, design and construction entirely in-house, we can remove variables that can derail deals and shift our investors’ focus from execution risk to returns.

Q2: What separates developers that continue to grow from those whose development pipelines are slowing?

Developers who continue to grow are using this period to advance shovel-ready projects through predevelopment. We are actively advancing our controlled pipeline today because, historically, the first wave of development out of a cycle outperforms.
Growing developers also recognize the shifting math between buying and building. By developing from the ground up, we size deals to deliver returns that substantially outperform buying stabilized, existing assets. We believe development fundamentally offers a better risk-adjusted return profile right now.

Q3: What role is technology playing in helping large multifamily developers manage increasingly complex portfolios and development projects?

Our team heavily leverages advanced proprietary software, typology data and unit prototyping to streamline our architecture and construction before a shovel ever hits the dirt. This level of upfront data integration dramatically lowers costs and minimizes change orders.
From a portfolio management perspective, technology gives us absolute transparency with our global network of investors. By centralizing our development, construction and asset management data, we can instantly share granular performance metrics. In a restrictive capital market, cleanly supporting our underwriting assumptions with real-time data is a key differentiator in building and maintaining investor trust.

Q4: How do you expect multifamily supply, demand and development activity to evolve over the next few years?

The demand side of the equation is incredibly strong. With mortgage rates hovering above 6% and home prices near record highs, homeownership remains structurally out of reach for a massive segment of the population. Millennial and Gen Z renters are forming new households and staying in the rental market longer, driving steady occupancy and absorption for high-quality communities.

At the same time, new supply has stalled, and new construction projects are broadly sitting on the shelf across the country. This dynamic sets up an incredible opportunity over the next 24 to 36 months.

When we break ground today, we are positioning our communities to deliver into a market that continues to see strong demand but has fully worked through the previous cycle’s supply overhang. This market environment, especially the pockets that are starved for new supply, helps to capture aggressive rent growth and valuations.

Methodology

This analysis was done by Yardi, a proptech solutions company offering property management software and more, across all real estate verticals.

For this report, we analyzed 26,534 multifamily owners and ranked them by their under-construction apartment inventory with a delivery date from 2026 to 2030 as of September 2026. Our data includes inventory only for buildings with 50+ units.

As supporting information, we’ve also looked at overall inventory by operator and building class rating. The building class rating includes discretionary (A+, A), upper mid (A-, B+), lower mid (B, B-) and workforce (C+, C, C-, D).

To zoom in on where they’re building the most, we also analyzed 3,498 cities with the most upcoming inventory for the same period, grouped into big cities (500,000+), midsize cities (250,000-499,000) and small cities (50,000-249,000). Cities with population below 50,000 dwellers were excluded from our analysis.

Data on operator and city-level construction came from Yardi Matrix, the industry’s most comprehensive market intelligence platform for equity investors, lenders and property managers who underwrite and manage institutional real estate investments.

For population changes, we used the U.S. Census 5-year American Community Survey, reflecting 2020-2024 population changes data.

Fair use and distribution

This study serves as a resource for the general public on issues of common interest and should not be regarded as investment advice. The data is true to the best of our knowledge, but may change if amendments to it are made. We agree to the distribution of this content, but we do require a mention in return for attribution purposes.