Rental Housing Weekly Briefing: February 16-20, 2026

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This week’s Rental Housing Weekly Briefing examines trends in small multifamily investment activity, emerging signals from the New York Fed’s Household Debt and Credit Report, what shifting consumer credit conditions may imply for rental housing performance, and the key data releases to watch in the week ahead.

LAST WEEK in RENTAL HOUSING 

Q1 2026 Small Multifamily Investment Trends Report  

• Small multifamily originations rose 16.5% year-over-year in 2025 to $64.2 billion, marking a second consecutive year of double-digit growth. While volumes remain below the 2021–2022 peak, activity has moved back above longer-run norms, signaling that capital continues to circulate even in a higher-for-longer rate environment.

  
  

• Refinancing remains the dominant driver of activity. The refinance share climbed to 76.2% in Q4 2025 — the highest level in five years — reflecting elevated maturity management from loans originated during the low-rate era. As a result, transaction composition continues to skew toward more seasoned assets adjusting to today’s financing environment.

  
  

• Cap rates reached 6.1% in Q4 — the highest level in roughly a decade — with refinancing cap rates rising more sharply than acquisition cap rates. This divergence suggests that recent valuation pressure is being shaped in part by refinancing dynamics and capital market recalibration, rather than a deterioration in operating fundamentals, which remain stable.

Household Credit Conditions: Mortgage Stability, Rising Consumer Stress

• Mortgage delinquency edged higher in Q4 2025 but remains historically low. The mortgage delinquency rate rose to 0.92%, up from 0.70% a year earlier, marking a modest normalization rather than a deterioration. Even with the recent uptick, mortgage performance remains exceptionally strong relative to past cycles and far below the 8–9% levels observed during the Global Financial Crisis. Fixed-rate structures and substantial homeowner equity continue to insulate the housing market from broad-based credit stress.

• Consumer credit stress is building outside of housing. Credit card delinquency climbed to 12.7% in Q4 — its highest reading of the post-pandemic period and now above pre-COVID norms — while auto loan delinquency moved above 5%. Student loan delinquency has also re-accelerated following the full resumption of repayment obligations. The divergence between mortgage and unsecured credit performance suggests mounting pressure on household cash flow rather than systemic weakness in housing finance.

• For rental housing, stress appears concentrated in renter balance sheets rather than owner distress. Renters tend to carry higher exposure to credit card, auto, and student loan debt and are less insulated by locked-in low mortgage rates. While rent is typically a prioritized payment, rising unsecured delinquency rates point to tightening financial conditions at the margin — particularly among lower- and moderate-income households. The key takeaway is a gradual consumer credit normalization, not a housing-driven downturn, with implications more centered on affordability pressures than on forced housing supply.

THE WEEK AHEAD 

February 16 2026:

• Zillow Observed Rent Index

February 18, 2026:

• New Residential Construction (Census Bureau)

February 20, 2026:

• Gross Domestic Product (Bureau of Economic Analysis)

• New Residential Sales (Census Bureau)