🧑‍🏫 What we learned from the latest rent rolls

👋 Hello, Best Ever readers! Some data centers are now being patrolled by robot dogs. Can’t wait for Air Bud, Data Defender, coming to a theater near you.

In today’s newsletter, the rent rolls are in, the Fed holds, fundraising rebounds, rent control hits the ballot, and much more.

This edition is brought to you by Equity Institutional Services. Most sponsors know IRA capital exists — few know how to access it without slowing down their raise. The right custody partner changes that. Equity Institutional Services can show you what smooth IRA participation actually looks like. Learn more.

📩 Today is your last chance to join Marcin Drozdz for a free live webinar on why founder control may be capping your capital raise. Secure your spot — Why Control Is Stalling Your Capital Raise is happening today, TODAY at 1 pm ET.

Let’s CRE!

🗞️ NO-FLUFF NEWS
CRE HEADLINES

🏦 Fed Holds: The Fed has kept its benchmark rate at 3.6% as Chair Jerome Powell — who has vowed to remain until a DOJ investigation concludes — warned that the Iran war's impact on inflation remains impossible to predict, with stubbornly elevated prices delaying the timeline for further cuts.

✂️ Red Tape: President Trump has signed two executive orders targeting housing development and mortgage lending, aiming to eliminate permitting barriers and energy mandates that regulators say have added $90,000 to the cost of a new single-family home.

📄 Eviction Capital: Atlanta multifamily landlords have filed more than 144,000 evictions in the past 12 months — more than any U.S. metro and most individual states — as rents are projected to climb more than 4% in 2026 and the market has lost 67,000 affordable units over three years.

📈 Fundraising Rebound: Global private real estate funds raised $172 billion in 2025 — up 13% YoY and the first increase since 2021 — with nearly 90% of capital flowing into opportunistic, value-add, and debt strategies as large GPs scale through M&A and platform diversification.

🏭 Robust Industrial: U.S. industrial markets have maintained weighted average occupancy above 92% across the top 25 MSAs, with Charlotte, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis hitting 100%, while CMBS delinquency rates average just 0.37% and Q4 2025 loan originations reached $3.8 billion.

🏆 TOP STORY
WHAT WE LEARNED FROM FEBRUARY RENT ROLLS

Thirty consecutive months. That's how long national asking rents have been falling — and February pushed the streak to a four-year low.

The national median asking rent has fallen to $1,667 per month across the 50 largest U.S. metros, down 1.7% from a year ago and 5.1% below the summer 2022 peak. Every unit size is participating: Studios are down 0.4%, one-bedrooms down 1.5%, and two-bedrooms down 1.9%, the latter marking 33 straight months of annual decreases.

The relief, however, is not evenly distributed. Fifteen markets have seen rents fall at least 10% from their peaks, driven largely by the Sun Belt construction boom that flooded those markets with new supply. At the other end of the spectrum, five markets are within striking distance of all-time highs — and in two cases, already past them. The top 10 markets where rents have fallen furthest from their peaks have all seen drops of 13% or more.

1. Austin, TX: 18.2% below peak (-$302/mo)

2. Birmingham, AL: 17.1% below peak (-$232/mo)

3. Memphis, TN: 16.1% below peak (-$219/mo)

4. Phoenix, AZ: 15.6% below peak (-$263/mo)

5. Atlanta, GA: 15.2% below peak (-$277/mo)

6. Las Vegas, NV: 14.8% below peak (-$248/mo)

7. San Diego, CA: 14.3% below peak (-$438/mo)

8. Nashville, TN: 13.9% below peak (-$236/mo)

9. Raleigh, NC: 13.4% below peak (-$222/mo)

10. Denver, CO: 13.0% below peak (-$258/mo)

Not every market is catching a break. Five metros are within striking distance of all-time highs, and they are closing in fast. Virginia Beach, VA, leads all markets with a 4.5% YoY rent increase, sitting just $28 below its 2022 peak. Richmond, VA, and Baltimore, MD, are both within $45 of their respective highs, with vacancy rates tightening sharply in both.

Beyond the Mid-Atlantic, Kansas City, MO, never experienced meaningful post-peak relief. What looks like a dip is seasonal noise in a market that has set new all-time highs every summer for years. San Jose, CA, has logged 28 consecutive months of positive YoY rent growth and sits just $86 below its August 2025 high.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The national rent story is one of sustained relief, but the market underneath it is splitting. Sun Belt markets that overbuilt are still working through supply, offering entry points at real discounts to recent peaks. A smaller set of supply-constrained markets — particularly along the mid-Atlantic — is already moving the other way. Where an investor is positioned right now determines whether declining rents are an opportunity or a headwind.

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Learn how Equity Institutional Services supports sponsors and their IRA investors.

💰 CRE BY THE NUMBERS
INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH, RENT CONTROL, AND MORE

📦 384M SF 

Large-facility industrial occupancies jumped 25% YoY in 2025 as manufacturing and logistics tenants absorbed 384M SF across 1,438 bulk facilities. Net absorption more than doubled in H2 to 118M SF, with the Midwest and Southeast each posting occupancy gains above 50%.

📉 1.3% 

Gainesville, Cape Coral–Fort Myers, and Tallahassee each posted a 1.3% drop in effective asking rents in February — the steepest monthly cuts among the 150 largest U.S. apartment markets, according to RealPage. Nationally, rents rose 0.3% for the month, making the divergence in these smaller markets all the more notable.

🏢 31.9% 

Office visits posted their strongest February since 2020, narrowing the gap to 31.9% below 2019 levels — down from 35.7% a year earlier. Sun Belt and West Coast markets led gains, with San Francisco up 11.9% YoY and Denver up 10.7%, while Northeast markets lagged due to severe winter storms.

🏠 $300 Billion 

A proposed Massachusetts rent control ballot measure could slash statewide property values by $300 billion over 10 years, according to a Tufts University study. Boston alone could see values drop 9% within three years, creating a $160 million budget gap, while smaller cities face losses of 15%–27%.

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Marcin Drozdz — private capital expert and advisor to 1,000+ operators — is going live at 1 PM ET to break down why founder control is the hidden ceiling on most raises and exactly how to fix it.

You'll walk away knowing:

• Why founder-dependent communication caps your raise velocity

• How to keep capital moving without routing everything through you

• The systems serious operators use to scale from $5M to $50M

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🏘️ DEAL OF THE WEEK
CLASS A MHP DELIVERS 32% IRR IN 24-MONTH HOLD

Ryan Narus and the team at Archimedes Group acquired this 182-unit Class A mobile home park in Fayetteville, NC, out of foreclosure for $12.8 million and sold it 24 months later for $15.75 million, hitting their original FIVE-year exit price in just two years with a 32% levered IRR and 1.6x equity multiple.

Here's how they did it 👇

🏢 Property details: This 182-unit Class A mobile home park is located in Fayetteville, NC. The property, Cape Fear, was acquired out of foreclosure in March 2024 for $12.8 million and sold in February 2026 for $15.75 million.

💸 Finances: The team raised $5 million in equity capital. They secured an $8 million loan from Five Star Bank with a 10-year term, 30-year amortization, two years interest-only, and a 7.79% interest rate (3.25% plus five-year treasury at closing).

💼 Business plan: The team originally underwrote a five-year hold with a 17.1% levered IRR. The strategy focused on operational improvements and extensive property renovations. The team addressed roofs, floors, bathrooms, subflooring, drywall, electrical systems, mailboxes, and trees, essentially attacking every aspect of the physical property that needed attention.

They also improved collection rates and fixed underlying operational issues to stabilize cash flow. With strong operations and a buyer who wanted the property more than the team wanted to hold it, they were able to exit at their five-year-projected price in just 24 months.

🍾 Results: The actual returns for investors after the 24-month hold:

• 32% levered IRR (originally underwrote 17.1%)

• 1.6x levered equity multiple

• $2.95M profit ($15.75 million sale price vs. $12.8 million purchase price)

💪 Biggest Challenge: "Figuring out why my Class B and Class C mobile home parks performed better than my new Class A MHP," said Narus. "I had to re-learn marketing in this market. We bought Cape Fear out of foreclosure using marketing that was effective for Class B and Class C mobile home parks. Class A mobile home parks needed to be attacked more like an apartment complex, as we discovered that's who we were primarily competing against. We found TikTok to be incredibly effective as well as guerrilla marketing."

👉 If you have a deal you'd like to share with us, please submit it here.