🌊 The Sun Belt's next wave is taking shape

👋 Happy Sunday, Best Ever readers!

In today’s newsletter, small markets explode, top markets tighten, demand returns, Utah stands out, a revenue model lenders love, and much more.

Today’s edition is presented by Real Estate Alpha, Pitch Slam 2026 winner. Most investors don't realize how rare a 10-year track record with zero missed payments actually is. Real Estate Alpha has paid every single investor, every single December 31st, without exception. Fixed 12% annually, 15-19% effective yield due to tax deferral, and fully backed by 700+ operating units across Western Ohio. See why accredited investors are allocating to this structure. Learn more today.

💰 Join us alongside Chris Lopez and Richard McGirr on April 23 at 1pm ET for a free webinar: Three Private Debt Strategies Targeting 16.4% to 20.4% Annual Cash Flow — secured by real assets and built for consistent income. Register now.

Let’s CRE!

🗞️ NO-FLUFF NEWS
CRE HEADLINES

📊 Rate Watch: A growing number of Fed officials have signaled openness to rate hikes if inflation stays above the 2% target, according to March meeting minutes, as the U.S.–Iran war drives oil prices higher and pulls the central bank in conflicting directions on its inflation and employment mandates.

🏙️ Competitive Streak: The national rental market has eased slightly, with the U.S. competitiveness score dipping from 75.7 to 75.4, but Miami, Chicago, and San Francisco are moving in the opposite direction, tightening as apartment construction dries up, with nine renters now competing for available units in each market.

🏠 Demand Returns: U.S. apartments absorbed nearly 93,300 units in Q1 2026, according to RealPage, one of the strongest first-quarter performances in a decade, while the annual demand of 303,000 units still trails the 340,000-unit decade average as occupancy holds at 94.9%.

🏗️ Fit-Out Surge: Office fit-out costs have climbed 5% YoY, with San Francisco leading at $228 PSF and the Northeast posting the steepest regional rise at 7%, as skilled labor shortages and tariffs drive persistent upward pressure despite slowing construction activity.

🏦 LTV Math: Proposed bank capital rules would create a three-tier risk-weighting framework tied to loan-to-value ratios, giving low-leverage multifamily borrowers below 60% LTV access to sharper bank pricing while leaving higher-leverage deals to non-bank lenders.

🏆 TOP STORY
SMALL MARKETS RESHAPING THE SUN BELT GROWTH MAP

The U.S. population grew just 0.5% between July 2024 and July 2025 — a modest national figure that tells almost nothing about what's actually happening on the ground. Beneath it, a decisive shift is underway: A handful of smaller Sun Belt metros are expanding at rates that dwarf the national average, while coastal giants are losing residents outright.

Ten metros posted population growth of 2.4% or more last year, according to RealPage, and nine of the ten are in the South. Florida and the Carolinas dominate the leaderboard, with smaller, often overlooked markets leading the charge:

• Ocala, FL: The metro north of Orlando recorded the fastest growth rate in the nation at 3.4%, driven by affordability relative to the broader Florida market and steady in-migration from higher-cost coastal cities. Ocala's growth reflects a broader pattern of residents trading major metros for smaller Sun Belt alternatives without leaving the region entirely.

• Myrtle Beach and the Carolinas: Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach, SC, posted 3.2% growth, while Spartanburg, SC, and Wilmington, NC, both exceeded 2.5%. The Carolinas are emerging as a consistent destination for residents priced out of larger Southeast hubs, with lifestyle amenities and lower cost of living driving sustained in-migration.

• Lakeland, Punta Gorda, and Huntsville: Florida's Lakeland and Punta Gorda, along with Alabama's Huntsville, each cleared 2.5% growth — a signal that demand is spreading beyond Florida's marquee markets into secondary and tertiary metros with more accessible entry points for investors.

In absolute population gains, large Southern metros are still doing the heavy lifting. Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands led all U.S. metros with roughly 126,700 new residents, followed by Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington at 123,600. Atlanta, Phoenix, Charlotte, and Austin each added between 54,000 and 62,000 residents, with Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue the only non-Southern metro to crack the top 10 for numeric growth.

The losses tell an equally important story. The steepest population growth slowdowns occurred along the U.S.-Mexico border — Laredo, TX, dropped from 3.2% growth to just 0.2%, Yuma, AZ, fell from 3.3% to 1.4%, and El Centro, CA, slipped into negative territory at -0.7% — driven largely by a nationwide decline in net international migration. Among the largest metros, Los Angeles and Miami both posted outright population declines, while New York managed just 0.2% growth despite remaining the nation's most populous metro at over 20.1 million residents.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Population growth at the metro level is one of the most reliable leading indicators of multifamily demand, and the current data points in a clear direction. Smaller Sun Belt metros — particularly in Florida and the Carolinas — are absorbing residents faster than the infrastructure and housing supply can keep pace, which creates the supply-demand conditions that drive occupancy and rent growth. For investors willing to look beyond the marquee Sun Belt markets, the opportunity set is expanding.

🤝 TOGETHER WITH REAL ESTATE ALPHA
A 10 YEAR TRACK RECORD THAT SPEAKS FOR ITSELF

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Click the link below for full details and to book a 15-minute discovery call. No pitch, just a real conversation to see if it aligns with your investment strategy.

This investment round is almost full and closing soon. Accredited investors only.

💰 CRE TRENDS
WHERE REMOTE WORK DENSITY IS RESHAPING DEMAND

Remote work has quietly reshuffled residential demand patterns across the U.S., and the states leading WalletHub’s latest Best States for Working from Home rankings aren't the ones most would guess. Utah ranks first overall, driven by low electricity costs, the largest average home size in the country at 2,459 square feet, and a workforce where 95% could theoretically work remotely. Delaware and Connecticut round out the top three.

The Sun Belt tells a more complicated story:

• Tennessee and Georgia crack the top 15, with strong living environment scores offsetting middling work environment rankings — a profile that maps closely to markets already seeing multifamily demand pressure from in-migration.

• Texas and Florida land at 21 and 25, respectively, held back by weaker living environment scores despite competitive work environments.

• Colorado ranks 23rd overall but leads the nation in share of population currently working from home, ahead of even D.C. and Washington state.

The Midwest is underrated here. Minnesota (11), Ohio (16), and Wisconsin (28) all score well on living environment metrics — home size, affordability, broadband access — factors that correlate directly with renter preference and household formation trends.

For multifamily investors, the map is a demand signal — the states with the strongest remote work infrastructure tend to be the ones where household formation is stickiest and renter pools run deepest.

👉 View the complete rankings here.

📩 YOU’RE INVITED
THE PRIVATE CREDIT WINDOW MOST INVESTORS ARE MISSING

Most investors don't realize that private credit lenders are being overcompensated for risk right now — creating one of the best income opportunities we've seen in years.

We’re hosting a free webinar on Thursday, April 23rd at 1pm ET where Chris Lopez and Richard McGirr of Property Llama will break down three non-correlated private debt strategies targeting 16.4% to 20.4% annual cash-on-cash returns, each secured by real assets and designed to work together as a diversified income portfolio.

You'll walk away knowing:

• Why right now is a rare window for private credit investors

• How each of the three strategies is structured and what it pays

• Why combining all three creates more consistent returns than any single strategy alone

• Whether these strategies belong in your portfolio

From origination fee sharing to Canadian mortgage investing to discounted non-performing loans — this is a webinar worth showing up for.

🎙️ THE BEST EVER CRE SHOW
THE REVENUE MODEL LENDERS ACTUALLY LIKE

Most CRE investors hear "resort" and think volatility — seasonal swings, fickle demand, a dozen revenue streams that can all go wrong at once. Phil Boggia has a different read: if you buy right and anchor the business on contracted revenue, a resort can underwrite more predictably than a lot of multifamily does right now.

This week on the Best Ever CRE Show, Boggia joined Amanda Cruise and Ash Patel to break down how Accountable Equity is acquiring distressed resort assets and building a revenue model that makes lenders comfortable — and a capital structure designed to reward long-term LPs.

• The Wedding Anchor: The strategy centers on wedding venues as the primary underwriting engine, not a secondary amenity. Boggia's firm collects non-refundable deposits of up to 50% on bookings placed 18–24 months in advance — the contracted revenue nature "makes it very bankable," Boggia says, later adding that the structure supports 65% LTV financing. Hotel, catering, golf, and spa revenues all flow from that anchor.

• The Acquisition Model: Properties are sourced from distressed sellers and bankruptcies, which is what makes the returns work. Low-basis entry gives the firm room to layer in revenue streams, force appreciation through operations, and execute a year-five refinance that returns investor capital plus accrued preferred returns — while LPs retain equity ownership in perpetuity.

• Why the Math Holds: The perpetual ownership structure is hard to model with a traditional IRR, but the mechanics are straightforward. Investors get their money back at year five and retain equity ownership indefinitely after that. Boggia targets around a 16% IRR at the five-year mark, with open-ended upside beyond it.

For CRE investors looking beyond conventional asset classes, the resort model makes a case that contracted revenue — not property type — is the real risk mitigant. "It's not real estate," Boggia says. "It's a business." Investors who underwrite it like one are finding the returns to match.

🎙️ Listen to Phil’s full episode here.