Rental Housing Weekly Briefing: January 20-23, 2026

Subscribe

This week’s Rental Housing Weekly Briefing examines Freddie Mac’s multifamily lending activity, recent trends in housing affordability as measured by the National Association of Realtors, and the key data releases to watch in the week ahead.

LAST WEEK in RENTAL HOUSING 

Freddie Mac Multifamily Lending Update

• Freddie Mac issued $68.0 billion in multifamily securities in 2025, up from $56.0 billion in 2024, marking a meaningful year-over-year increase following the sharp pullback in issuance during 2022–2023. While volumes remain below the 2021 peak ($80.6 billion), the rebound reflects improving capital markets execution rather than a return to cycle highs.

  
  

• In parallel, total multifamily production reached $77.6 billion in 2025, up 17% year-over-year, underscoring Freddie Mac’s broader lending footprint beyond securitization. The widening gap between production and issuance reflects increased use of forward commitments, affordability-focused lending, and balance-sheet activity, rather than weakness in capital markets access.

  
  

• The most notable shift from 2024 to 2025 was in execution mix rather than headline volume. Multi PC issuance surged to a record $28.1 billion, while K-Deals remained the largest channel at $32.6 billion, highlighting strong demand for alternative risk-transfer structures amid ongoing refinancing pressure and elevated interest rates.

  
  

• Taken together, the data underscore Freddie Mac’s continued countercyclical role, supporting liquidity and affordability while adapting execution strategies to a higher-rate environment and uneven investor demand.

Housing Afforability Update (NAR)

• The National Association of Realtors Housing Affordability Index continued to improve modestly into late 2025, driven primarily by easing mortgage rates rather than a material decline in home prices. By November, the national fixed-rate affordability index rose to 108.4, its highest reading since early 2022.

  
  

• Monthly gains reflect a gradual reduction in payment burden. Mortgage rates fell to 6.32% in November, pulling the principal-and-interest payment down to $2,056 and reducing payments as a share of income to 23.1%, down from mid-year peaks above 26%.

  
  

• Despite improvement at the margin, affordability remains uneven across regions. The West continues to face the most acute constraints, with an index reading of 76.9, while the Midwest remains the most affordable region, with an index above 135.

  
  

• Implications for rental housing: improving affordability at the margin may allow a modest increase in renter transitions into homeownership, particularly among higher-income households. However, affordability remains constrained relative to pre-pandemic norms, and structural barriers—including elevated home prices and down-payment requirements—continue to limit the scale of this shift.

THE WEEK AHEAD 

January 20, 2026:

• Chandan Multifamily Rent Growth Update: December 2025

January 21, 2026:

• Construction Spending (Census Bureau)

  
  

January 22, 2026:

• Gross Domestic Product (Bureau of Economic Analysis)

• Primary Mortgage Survey (Freddie Mac) 

  
  

January 23, 2026:

• Chandan-RentRedi Independent Landlord Rental Performance Report