The Rent Roll with Jay Parsons

Rental housing economist Jay Parsons dives into the bizarrely regressive legislation that would effectively block most build-to-rent single-family home construction. In fact, as Jay shares, the legislation is already having a devastating impact on the BTR pipeline, even prior to the legislation's passage, due to sudden uncertainty around the sector's regulatory viability. Already, investors and...

Rental housing economist Jay Parsons covers a busy week of headlines related to apartments and single-family rentals — including another major apartment portfolio trade plus the latest on the proposed ban on institutional SFR investors. But the focus of this week's podcast is the sub-institutional multifamily. Small multifamily rarely gets the attention given to institutional multifamily, yet...

There are no shortages of false narratives about affordable housing. From the buildings to the renters who live in them, they rarely match the public narratives about them. And also: Just because a developer can get tax credits to build affordable housing doesn't make it easier, either — especially in higher-supplied markets where affordable rents are colliding with market-rate rents due to rent...

Rental housing economist Jay Parsons dives into the remarkable story of Equity Residential, starting with two fraternity brothers at the University of Michigan in the 1960s through its IPO in the 1990s, its scaling to 225,000 units in 2001 (which included investments in 36 states, in affordable housing and in ranch-style apartments) to its shift to focus entirely in coastal urban markets to its...

Rental housing economist Jay Parsons dives into the multifamily industry's biggest family business, Morgan Properties. Started in the mid-1980s when Mitchell Morgan acquired three apartment communities in suburban Philadelphia with a dollar down, Morgan's portfolio has since grown to 110,000+ units — making Morgan the No. 2 largest apartment owner in the country. Mitchell recently promoted his...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...