Zonda has launched a new research product, Apartment Outlook, designed to provide industry professionals deeper visibility into the trends shaping today’s rental market.
Subscribers to Apartment Outlook will gain access to quarterly reports with detailed analysis of economic drivers and leasing fundamentals, custom research providing deeper analysis on factors shaping demand and market risks, multifamily pipeline data, multifamily REIT earnings summaries, and proprietary survey results. The platform will provide an in-depth look into trends on both a national and local level to help not only investors and developers, but all stakeholders in the housing industry.
“There is a greater need for production builders and resale stakeholders to understand what is happening in the rental market,” says Julia Bunch, senior manager of multifamily research for Zonda. “We used to have this idea that you rented until you could buy and then you owned and that was the end of your housing cycle. Now, people may choose to rent. They may rent for a while, then buy a home, then sell and move to a different market. There is more of a need to understand the broader housing ecosystem and that is what we are trying to do here.”
A quarterly outlook, one of the reports included in Apartment Outlook, includes insights shaping homeownership for subscribers. These insights include trends in rent-to-income and mortgage-to-income data and the rent vs. own gap on a market by market basis. The report also includes BTR data, rent data, and for sale data on a market-by-market basis to provide stakeholders across the housing ecosystem with valuable insight on the dynamic housing market.
“The last wave of [multifamily] pipeline is primarily in the suburban markets, not the urban markets. That pipeline is housing builder’s future potential home buyers. Builders are no longer trying to talk urban dwellers into the suburbs. It its more suburban to suburban [movement],” says Kimberly Byrum, managing principal at Zonda.
For production builders, monitoring the rental market is particularly valuable for companies providing entry-level product. What is going on in the rental market can provide cues on how the for-sale market will develop and insights on features that are resonating with renters can shed light on why more individuals may be renting by choice rather than buying homes.
“We are monitoring renewal rates and traffic patterns by market. As the markets loosen up, I think it is going to be an initial indicator of how the first-time home buyer is going to enter that particular market,” say Byrum. “[Apartment Outlook] is a product where there is a homebuilding background of data overlayed with our knowledge of multifamily so the homebuilder can get a full picture of what is going on market by market.”
Bunch notes that there is often a misconception that the rental and for-sale markets operate in opposition to one another.
“A rising tide can lift all boats. If we have a healthy housing market across all ecosystems that is generally to the benefit of all the different sectors,” Bunch says. “It is good to monitor these things if you are on the for-sale side of the housing market. Particularly right now, it is relevant to be monitoring what is happening in the rental market. Renters are happy, they are staying put, and they are generally satisfied with their situations. It makes it that much more incumbent on homebuilders to be building a product that would take renters out of the renter pool and into the first-time homebuyer pool.”
To celebrate the launch of Apartment Outlook, Byrum and Bunch will participate on a webinar Jan. 8 at 11:00 am PT and provide a first look at the product and discuss the forces shaping multifamily performance in 2026
