Field notes for real-estate investors.
Deep dives on data, markets, and the craft of finding deals most people miss. Published daily.
Washington Spent the Year Trying to Stop Wall Street From Buying Houses. On October 14 It Started Insuring Their Mortgages for 43 Years.
HUD's new build-to-rent letter, in plain English, and the five-unit threshold most of the coverage skipped.
HUD's Mortgagee Letter 2026-12 opened FHA multifamily mortgage insurance to build-to-rent communities of detached houses, duplexes and triplexes, citing an executive order titled 'Stopping Wall Street From Competing With Main Street Homebuyers.' Here is what the five-page letter actually does: 43 years of non-recourse government-insured debt, a five-unit eligibility floor small builders are missing, and a clause barring the sale of any individual house for the life of the loan.
HUD Just Cut What It Pays Dallas Landlords 6.4% and Gave Kansas City a 13.8% Raise. Section 8 Is a Rust Belt Trade Now.
HUD's FY 2027 Fair Market Rents took effect October 1. The 2.0% population-weighted headline hides the real story: 466 areas went down, holding 36.3% of the U.S. population, while Kansas City rose 13.8% and Chicago 12.9%. This breaks down the metro-by-metro reversal from HUD's own spreadsheets, the ZIP-level Small Area FMR spreads worth up to 2.86x, the exact regulation that forces your housing authority to raise its payment standard, and the two doors to walk through if your FMR fell while your rents rose.
44% of Landlords Just Said They're Done Buying. The Expense They Blame Is the One Whose Cost Base Fell This Year.
A record 44% of single-family landlords say they are unlikely to buy another rental in the next 12 months, and 84% blame insurance for hitting their cash flow. But catastrophe reinsurance pricing is down 16% in 2026, 44 Florida carriers have filed for rate decreases, and the state's share of national homeowners litigation fell from 73% to 41% in one year. This breaks down why landlords are underwriting a 2024 premium in a 2026 market, runs the Broward arithmetic showing debt cost 4.4 times more than any insurance savings can give back, and shows how to re-shop and re-underwrite before your next renewal.
FEMA's Maps Miss 13 Million High-Risk Properties. The 4.5 Million Policies That Do Exist Expire December 11.
A new GAO report counts about 16 million American properties with a 1% or greater annual chance of flooding, and finds 13 million of them sit outside FEMA's mapped flood zones, where only 2% carry insurance. Meanwhile the National Flood Insurance Program's authority expires December 11, 2026. This breaks down why the flood-zone line is a lending trigger rather than a risk measurement, what to do about a December closing in the next 64 days, and how to find the properties the mandatory-purchase rule never reaches.
RealPage Paid No Fine and Became the Government's Witness. Forty Landlords Are Paying $359,925,000.
The Justice Department settled with RealPage for no fine, no admission, and a cooperation agreement against the landlords who used its software. Those landlords are now funding a $359,925,000 settlement with final approval set for October 15, 2026. Here is what the consent decree actually restricts, why the eleven-door landlord in Philadelphia is inside the same rules as Greystar, and how to rebuild a rent comp set from public data instead of licensing one.
The 10-Year Just Closed at 5.29%, Its Highest in 19 Years. New York Apartments Still Trade at a 5 Cap.
The 10-year Treasury closed the third quarter at 5.29%, its highest in 19 years, while CBRE's own survey has stabilized New York multifamily trading at a 5.0% to 5.5% cap rate. The risk premium for owning a building instead of a government bond is now roughly zero, and in part of that band it is negative. Here is the arithmetic on what has to reprice, why the debt market closes the trap, and the five PropGPT lists to build before sellers accept the math.
There Are 12.3 Million Assumable Mortgages. Federal Law Bars Investors From 8.1 Million of Them.
Every assumable-mortgage pitch quotes 12 million government-backed loans at 3%. HUD's own handbook bars private investors from the 8.1 million FHA loans in that number. The 4.2 million VA loans are wide open, with no occupancy requirement, a servicer that cannot refuse to process the request, and a 2024 VA circular telling lenders how to structure the second lien. In all of 2023, buyers closed 2,244 of them.
Foreclosure Volumes Are “Historically Low.” Banks Just Repossessed 42% More Homes Than Last August, and Texas Took a Third of Them.
ATTOM's August report shows completed foreclosures up 42% year over year to 5,794, with Texas alone taking 1,835 of them. Underneath it, MBA's Q2 survey shows FHA serious delinquencies up 227 basis points against 6 for conventional. Here's why the national average is hiding a single-program credit failure, which states convert it into buyable inventory first, and the PropGPT screens that build your 2027 acquisition list now.
Home Values Fell 1.7%. Tax Bills Rose 3%. Fewer Than 5% of Owners Bothered to Appeal.
ATTOM's latest annual analysis shows the average single-family home lost 1.7% of its value while its tax bill rose 3%, pushing the effective rate to its highest level since 2020. Census data shows property tax collections compounding at 4% against a price index growing 1.6%. Here's how to read your assessment, build the comp exhibit that wins an appeal, and what it's worth in NOI and enterprise value.
Apartment Completions Just Fell 35.7%. The Rent Glut Everyone Is Still Underwriting Is Already Over.
The Census Bureau's August construction report shows buildings with five or more units finishing at a 302,000 annual rate, down 35.7% from a year earlier, while unbuilt apartment permits rose 15.3% and the Fed raised rates the day before. Meanwhile national rents have risen seven straight months and vacancy just turned down. Here's why the Sun Belt markets with the worst trailing rents are the ones to shop now, and a dated call on when national rent growth turns positive.
Everyone Spent 2026 Waiting for a Rate Cut. Wall Street Just Put 89% Odds on a Hike Wednesday Instead.
Markets put the odds of a Fed rate increase at the September 16 FOMC meeting near 89%, which would be the first hike in 1,147 days. There are two clocks running on leveraged real estate and most investors are confusing them: prime-indexed debt reprices within a billing cycle, while an ARM written today does not reset until 2031. Here is what a quarter-point move actually costs, and why underwriting a 2027 refinance exit is now the most crowded bad bet in real estate.
Mortgage Rates Hit 7.06% This Week. Builders Already Cut Their Prices 6% — For the 16th Month Straight.
NAHB's August data shows 35% of builders cutting prices an average of 6% and 63% stacking incentives — the 16th straight month of both — while mortgage rates climbed to 7.06% ahead of the Fed's September meeting. Here's why the builder discount already on the table beats waiting on a rate cut, and how to find it by metro.