Rent becoming more affordable for many Americans as market stabilizes

 Renters are expected to see some relief from rising prices this year, with the pace of rent growth expected to slow as the market stabilizes and a measure of affordability hits a four-year-high.

An analysis by Zillow projects that multifamily rental prices are expected to remain relatively flat through the end of 2026, declining slightly by 0.2%. 

Single-family rents are expected to rise at an annual rate of 1.1% in December 2026, which the report says would represent a "sharp slowdown from the rapid increases of recent years" as higher vacancy rates and more newly-built apartments help keep rent growth subdued as renters' bargaining positions improve. Single family rents were up 2.7% last month from a year ago.

Zillow found that the typical asking rent in January was $1,895, up just 0.1% from December and 2% year over year. That represents the slowest annual rent growth since December 2020, as the market has steadied after prices saw rapid increases during the pandemic.

Rents for multifamily homes have grown at an even slower pace, rising just 1.4% from a year ago. Zillow's projection that multifamily rents will decline slightly and remain essentially flat this year, indicates that further relief could be on the way.

Slowing rent growth has boosted an affordability measure that takes into account renters' income levels. A median income household would now spend 24.3% of its income on typical apartment rent, which is down slightly from 25% in February 2020.

By another measure, the typical household is spending 26.4% of its income on rent, which is the lowest share since August 2021. 

Metro areas where that figure is significantly higher than the national average include Miami (37.2%), New York City (36.9%) and Los Angeles (34%). 

Notable metros with better affordability include St. Louis (19.7%), Minneapolis (19.4%), Denver (19.4%), Austin (17.9%) and Salt Lake City (17.9%).

"Renters are operating in a very different environment than they were just a few years ago," said Orphe Dviounguy, senior economist at Zillow. "When supply expands and vacancies rise, property managers have to adjust on both price and terms. Concessions are near record highs, keeping rent growth modest and creating meaningful opportunities for renters."

Zillow also noted that renters are getting more concessions in lease terms as they utilize their negotiating leverage in renewals and new leases.

It found that nearly 40% of rental listings on the Zillow platform in January had at least one concession, like a free month of rent or a reduced deposit. 

That's slightly below the record high set last January, when 41.1% of listings had a concession, and the figure remains elevated compared to historical norms.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/rent-becoming-more-affordable-many-americans-market-stabilizes

Amid Slumping Sales & Sentiment, Housing Starts & Permits Jumped In December

 It would appear that homebuilders are desperately hoping for a 'Field of Dreams' year...

After seeing existing home sales collapse in January (not driven by the winter storms), US Housing Starts and Building Permits rose dramatically more than expected in December (+6.2% MoM vs +1.1% exp and +4.3% MoM vs +0.4% MoM exp respectively)...

Additionally, Housing Starts rose as Home Builders confidence crumbled (and Future Sales expectations dropped)...

The surprise monthly surge lifted the SAAR totals for both housing sector data points to multi-month highs...

Breaking down the headline data shows that multi-family building permits and housing starts soared (+18.1% MoM and +10.1% MoM respectively) while Single-Family Building Permits tumbled 1.7% MoM while single-family starts rose for the 3rd straight month...

However, the pace of construction continues to decline on a year-over-year basis.

Growth in permit demand was most robust in the Northeast and West, two of the more volatile regions.

Finally, the inventory of new homes for sale remains a significant headwind for residential construction activity.

While mortgage rates have fallen, perhaps prompting the homebuilders to take advantage...

...the fact that rate-cut expectations have tumbled suggests they 'they will not come' anytime soon, no matter how much you build.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/amid-slumping-sales-sentiment-housing-starts-permits-jumped-december

Mamdani’s budget hands Hochul a political bomb, rejecting most prudent path forward

 On the eve of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first preliminary budget rollout, Gov. Kathy Hochul handed him what amounted to a $1.5 billion gift card, courtesy of state taxpayers. 

On Tuesday, the mayor thanked the governor for the promised new state aid — by handing her a ticking political bomb.

Despite the added money, Mamdani said, the city faces a “historic” $5.4 billion budget gap — which can only be closed by proceeding along what the mayor characterized as two “paths.”

Path one, he said, would be for the state to give the city authority to “raise [income] taxes on the ultra-wealthy and the most profitable corporations” — a step Hochul has refused to take.

Path two: “Balance the budget on the backs of working people” with a 9.5% increase in the city property tax.

This would be New York City’s first property tax hike in 23 years, and its second largest in at least 45 years. 

And its impact wouldn’t be limited to working people; it would undermine the commercial market and push into bankruptcy more of the city’s struggling rent-regulated apartment owners.

Mamdani flatly ruled out an obvious third path for the city: reducing spending in his mammoth $127 billion proposed budget.

An obvious starting point would be with something for which Hochul richly deserves blame: the 2022 state law mandating smaller class sizes, even as school enrollment plummets. 

Repealing that law and updating the school-aid formula could save well over $1 billion a year.

Total spending in Mamdani’s first budget would be billions of dollars higher than Mayor Eric Adams’ last estimate, reflecting in large part the new mayor’s promise to more accurately reflect rising expenses his predecessor chronically sought to fudge or underbudget. 

But in another departure from Adams’ approach — and, indeed, from the deliberate revenue low-balling of every mayor since Rudy Giuliani — Mamdani’s economic outlook is also anything but less conservative.

Despite a projected slowdown in New York’s already sluggish job growth, Mamdani’s budget assumes the city’s economy will grow faster than the national GDP over the next four years.

His total tax projections are billions of dollars above the levels projected by the city’s independent fiscal monitors.

This kind of optimism leaves little room for error — even as Mamdani projects a hefty budget gap of $6.6 billion the year after next, and total shortfalls of $20 billion from fiscal 2028 through fiscal 2030. 

Indeed, even if he squeezes a soak-the-rich tax hike out of Hochul — and even assuming a continued Wall Street boom — Mamdani will be in the hole again a year from now.

Speaking of gifts, the budget also includes a big favor to the city’s powerful labor unions.

In a 2018 deal with then-Mayor Bill de Blasio, union leaders agreed to find $1 billion in savings to replenish an off-budget Health Insurance Stabilization Fund for city workers.

But the savings never materialized, and the fund is insolvent.

Mamdani now has moved the health-care obligation onto the budget, at a combined cost of $2 billion in spending obligations this year and next.

This will be partially offset by a recent labor-management agreement to move city workers to a less expensive health-insurance plan — which will, nonetheless, continue to offer coverage free of co-pays, an expensive deal unavailable to most private workers and state-government employees.   

Meanwhile, Hochul has reason to seethe over the mayor’s unsubtle message to city voters in a statewide election year: If your property taxes go up, it’s Hochul’s fault. 

True, the governor’s road to re-election looks much smoother than just a few weeks ago, when Lt.-Gov Altonio Delgado was threatening to challenge her in a Democratic primary.

In a two-way general election, polls show the governor with a sizable lead over her Republican-Conservative opponent, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.

But there remains a cloud on the governor’s political horizon, in the form of the Mamdani’s close allies in the Working Families Party.

The same week Democrats renominated Hochul, the WFP handed its gubernatorial nod to a no-name placeholder, preserving that party’s option of producing a better-known challenger to undermine Hochul’s support on the left. 

And as it happened, hours before unveiling his budget Tuesday, Mamdani announced his appointment of a WFP party leader as the city’s commissioner of international affairs.  

Next week, hordes of left-wing activists and union members will descend on the state Capitol to lobby for Mamdani’s soak-the-rich tax agenda.

In what’s shaping up as an epic state budget battle, Mamdani may have won the news cycle.  

To guard against further erosion in a statewide tax base already over-dependent on millionaire earners based in the city, Hochul needs a strategy for winning the war.

EJ McMahon is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

https://nypost.com/2026/02/17/opinion/mamdanis-budget-hands-hochul-a-political-bomb-while-rejecting-the-most-prudent-path-forward/

It Begins: Mamdani Plans First NYC Property Tax Hike In Decades To Plug $5 Billion Hole

 New York City property owners are set to 'enjoy' the first property tax hike in more than two decades as part of a proposed solution by Mayor Zohran Mamdani to fill a roughly $5 billion budget gap, Bloomberg reports.

"He’s put a pretty extreme option on the table, which is a combination of raising property taxes and taking money from reserves and relying on some pretty aggressive revenue projections to boot," said NYC Comptroller Mark Levine. 

The pitch, set to be unveiled Tuesday afternoon during Mamdani's preliminary budget proposal, comes one day after Governor Kathy Hochul vowed to kick in another $1.5 billion in additional aid to the city for the current fiscal year and next. Hochul has also committed $510 million for future years to help plug holes in the budget. 

Mamdani says that the state should step up even more. Last week, he called on state lawmakers Wednesday to approve a 2 percent personal income tax increase on the city’s wealthiest residents as well as a hike in the corporate tax rate in a bid to close a multibillion-dollar budget gap. Of note, Hochul and the legislature must approve any tax changes.

While Mamdani is handcuffed in many ways when it comes to raising revenue, raising property taxes is something he can do as part of the annual budget process. Homeowners, meanwhile, just had their assessed values jump 5.6%, which will bring the city an additional $325.8 billion - which is separate of Mamdani's plan. 

Mamdani’s own rhetoric about the size and scope of the city’s budget situation has shifted. Earlier this month, just two weeks after describing the city’s $12.6 billion budget deficit as the city’s largest since the Great Recession, Mamdani revealed the hole had actually shrunk by $5 billion, because of higher tax revenue, propelled by personal income tax growth and Wall Street bonuses.

Even threatening to raise property taxes could prove a political lightning rod for Mamdani, after campaigning to reform that system, which has been criticized for overburdening lower- and middle-income residents. The last time the city increased property tax rates was under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the early 2000s. -Bloomberg

Meanwhile last month Mamdani said NYC is facing a $12.6 billion deficit over the next two years, which he blamed on his predecessor, Mayor Eric Adams, whose administration he says underbudgeted for various expenses such as cash assistance, rental assistance for homeless residents, special education and overtime costs. In FY 2025, NYC took in over $33 billion in property tax revenue. 

Mamdani during his campaign promoted progressive reforms to fund proposals such as free public transit, rent stabilization and housing programs, universal child care, and a $30 minimum wage, leading to his upset win over more moderate Democrats.

He called for a 2 percent surcharge on high earners on the campaign trail.

Estimates suggested it could create approximately $4 billion annually to support increased public services and affordability programs, as well as offset costs for broad social investments while not saddling middle- and low-income residents.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/it-begins-mamdani-plans-first-nyc-property-tax-hike-decades-plug-5-billion-hole

US Banks to See New Mortgage Capital Requirements in Basel Plan

 

US lenders are poised to see new mortgage-loan requirements as the Federal Reserve comes closer to unveiling a long-awaited bank capital proposal tied to Basel III.

Michelle Bowman, the Fed’s top bank cop, said parts of that new measure related to residential real estate would consider increasing the “risk sensitivity” of capital requirements for mortgage loans on bank books. One approach would be to use loan-to-value ratios to determine the applicable risk weight for residential real estate exposures, rather than applying a uniform risk weight.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-16/us-banks-to-see-new-mortgage-capital-requirements-in-basel-plan

Mamdani’s ‘rental ripoff’ hearings will ban NYCHA tenant complaints

 Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “rental ripoff” hearings will ban testimony from public housing tenants — even though the government agency running the units is routinely called the “worst” in the five boroughs.

The democratic socialist’s administration will host its first complaint session on Feb. 26, but the much-touted program will only focus on renters and landlords in privately owned buildings and not the half a million tenants of the New York City Housing Authority.

Property owners fumed about the city dodging questions about the public units while also encouraging tenants in private property to attend the sessions to testify about landlord abuses such as “rental junk fees” for amenities including keeping pets.

“The city’s own tenants—those living in public housing—are demanding a real plan to improve their living conditions,” said Humberto Lopes, CEO of Gotham Housing Alliance. “It appears the Mamdani administration woke up to their own hypocrisy.

“If these hearings were truly about holding bad landlords accountable, the over 500,000 residents in NYCHA would be able to meaningfully participate,” Lopes added. “This is clearly the city trying to distract from its own failures while putting on a show, instead of having a real conversation with property owners, renters, NYCHA residents, and everyone else about how to improve housing for all.”

Mamdani’s team was forced to address the slight, quietly updating a message on the city’s website to include a Q&A answering “Are these hearings for NYCHA residents too?”

“While these hearings focus on price gouging and living conditions for private-market renters, senior leadership and staff from NYCHA will be on-site to ensure that residents can submit in-apartment repair requests, file heat/hot water complaints, or discuss development-wide issues,” the updated note said.

“In the coming months, our administration will release a housing plan focused on improving housing quality for all New Yorkers, including those in public housing.”

4

Water damage seen at NYCHA’s Beach 41st Street Houses community center in Rockaway, Queens on Feb. 4, 2026.Stephen Yang for NY Post

NYCHA is infamously featured as the city’s worst landlord in reports put out by the city public advocate’s office.

The agency has been placed under a federal monitor since 2019 over hazardous conditions and other scandals such as falsely certifying inspections.

Mamdani defended focusing the hearings solely on privately-owned apartments.

“So we are going to be approaching the housing crisis in a wide variety of ways. One of those are these rental rip off hearings,” Mamdani told reporters Sunday at an unrelated event on Coney Island.

4

The Mamdani administration is encouraging New Yorkers to complain about things like “rental junk fees.”Instagram/zohrankmamdani

Hizzoner also blamed the federal government for disinvesting in NYCHA, which requires a staggering $80 billion in capital improvements.

“We will also continue to work with NYCHA residents to ensure that they are being delivered the quality of service they’ve long been denied,” Mamdani said. “And while we know that so much of the reason that NYCHA residents are living through a system that requires around $80 billion of capital improvements. By last count, is a lack of commitment from the federal government.”

But Lopez and other critics said the hearings that focus only on privately-owned apartment buildings is just one example of Mamdani’s misguided housing policy and ideology, which includes wanting the city Rent Guidelines Board to freeze the rent on the city’s nearly 1 million rent-regulated apartments.

Cea Weaver, his director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, has come under fire for past statements that disparaged home ownership as a “weapon of white supremacy” and calling on the government to “seize private property.”

4

Cea Weaver, the director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, has called home ownership a “weapon of white supremacy.”James Messerschmidt for NY Post

“Impoverish the white middle class. Homeownership is racist/failed public policy,” she once said.

“Elect more communists,” Weaver also said.

Mamdani’s hearings will include the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the Department of Buildings, and the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, according to the mayor’s website.

Other agencies such as NYCHA will also be available but only “to provide resources.”

https://nypost.com/2026/02/15/us-news/zohran-mamdanis-rental-ripoff-hearings-will-ban-nycha-tenant-complaints/