Jay Parsons on changes in the rental market

Name: Jay Parsons on changes in the rental market
Uploaded: 2026-08-19T08:00:18+00:00
Duration: 25 min 35 s
Channel: HousingWire

00:11Welcome, everyone. My guest today is rental economist Jay Parsons of Jay Parsons Research

00:16and host of the Rent Roll podcast to talk about the rental side of the housing market

00:21and where he's seeing changes in rental vacancies and in rent growth.

00:25Before we dive in, here are the top five stories on housingwire.com.

00:30First, we have UWM faces class action lawsuit over hedge strategy, followed by mortgage rates fall again,

00:37but are borrowers stretching budgets too far?

00:39Then we have REMAX CEO Eric Carlson to step down after real acquisition closes,

00:45and IMBs lift profits in Q2 as costs fall and volumes rise.

00:51Finally, we have Logan's latest on why we don't have a housing shortage.

00:54Okay, we are ready to dive in. Jay, welcome to the podcast.

00:59Thanks for having me, Sarah.

01:00Oh, I'm so excited to have you. You know, we spend a lot of time talking about the housing market

01:04in general,

01:05but really focused on single family.

01:07So excited to have, you know, someone who's an expert in the rental market and single family rentals and multifamily.

01:14So that's what I want to start out with is like, can you give us a high level view of

01:18the rental market?

01:19I think the narrative over the last few years is that, you know, it's been tough.

01:23Rising rates affects the whole housing market, rents included.

01:27But is that an outdated view? What's changing and what would you characterize that market as right now?

01:32Well, yeah. First and foremost, Sarah, thank you for asking that because, you know,

01:35one of my pet peeves, the reason I love what I do and focus on the rental market is because

01:39I think so much analysis around the rental housing market

01:41is viewed through the lens of homeownership and homebuyers.

01:45And obviously, you know, we're two thirds nation homebuyers.

01:48I think we always will be in a homeownership nation.

01:50But, you know, people people rent for different reasons, not just because they can't afford to buy right now.

01:55And so although obviously that's been been part of it.

01:57So in terms of the health of the rental housing market, I do think a lot of it is different

02:01from people perceive because they have the lens of,

02:04oh, my goodness, it's just so much more expensive to buy than rent.

02:06So everybody's renting right now. That's driving everything.

02:08It's just not that simple. The big story for the for the apartment and single family rental market these last

02:14three or four years has been an influx of supply.

02:17And we have the biggest supply wave in rental housing in 40 plus years.

02:21And we've had actually tremendous demand absorption.

02:24People don't talk about this enough, but the absorption number, renter household formation numbers, they've been very, very strong.

02:29But there's been even more supply that's pushed down rents.

02:32But that's also improved affordability. We've seen rent income ratios improve and whatnot.

02:36And so, you know, we could talk about this a long time, but I think what now we're at is

02:39a tail end of the supply wave.

02:41We're starting to see some some signs of momentum again in both the single family rental market and the apart

02:46market.

02:47But there's still some ways to go.

02:50Now, I love that high level view. So I think that, you know, when you think about rental vacancies, right,

02:55where are we with rental vacancies?

02:57Because that's going to drive up or down rents.

03:00Yeah, no, absolutely. It's all about supply and demand. It's just not that complicated.

03:04And and again, I think, you know, it's interesting.

03:06I kept a couple of headline clippings from like the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg saying, OK, you know, mortgage

03:11rates are up.

03:11Therefore, this is going to drive all this demand in rentals and rents are going to shoot up.

03:15And that didn't happen in large part because, again, there's been great demand, but there's been so much supply that's

03:19pushed vacancy up.

03:20And so what we've seen is that we had about I think it was three straight years of vacancy increases.

03:25And now this year, especially since the leasing season started around March, we have seen incremental vacancy improvement.

03:33It's not dramatic yet, but starting to trend in the right direction, trending.

03:36We've seen that improvement. It's the best improvement we've seen since 2021, early 2022.

03:42But we still there's different data sources say different things in terms of numbers.

03:46But the the big picture is we're still, I would say, slightly elevated or slightly and moderately elevated above normal.

03:53And until we get to, you know, more of a normal vacancy rate, you're still going to see limited rent

03:58growth.

03:59So you're saying that, you know, like that the number of units may be a slowdown, right?

04:04How much was in the pipeline if we've had three years of of growth of that supply coming on the

04:09market?

04:09What is the pipeline look like on things that were already started that maybe now don't look like a great

04:13deal?

04:14So just give you some numbers here. Like at one point, we had more than a million apartment units under

04:17construction, plus, you know, tens of thousands of build to rent Singapore homes as well.

04:23And on top of that, you also had, you know, would be home sellers.

04:26I mean, you all have written about there's different theories on this, of course, the so-called accidental landlords who

04:31would have sold their house, but end up deciding to rent it out again.

04:34And that's putting more rental inventory on the market as well.

04:36And so that really peaked in 24, 25 in terms of just added supply into the market.

04:44It's really dropped off this year.

04:47Total construction now is half of what it was at the peak.

04:51And so it has dropped off substantially.

04:53Now, it's not evaporated entirely.

04:56You know, if you go back to, you know, 2010, you know, after the great financial crisis,

05:00there was almost no construction going on because of obviously the economy being in such a terrible shape.

05:04It's not disappeared, but we are at levels that, especially in the apartment side, we're about mid-2010s levels.

05:12Build to rent is still more elevated because we didn't really have a build to rent construction market until about

05:1510 years ago,

05:16but it's come down as well.

05:17It's still about half of what it was at the peak.

05:19So it's not, again, it's not evaporating, but it's come down substantially.

05:23What do you see in concessions or, you know, free months of rent, whatever you want to call it?

05:29Yeah, this is a great topic.

05:30And the concessions are the highest they've been since coming out of the great financial crisis in 2010, 2011.

05:37And I think a lot of people misunderstand this topic.

05:41And the way I see it is you look at a month or two free on a, you know, $2

05:45,500 rent.

05:46Like, that's not necessarily going to put a lot more people into the rental market.

05:50It does allow them, though, to maybe move up from, you know, a class A, a class B property to

05:56a nicer class A property.

05:58But really what it's doing, I think, is it's become part of the competitive landscape.

06:04Property managers have, we've made concessions.

06:07As vacancy went up, concessions have become so abundant that we've conditioned renters to expect a deal.

06:12And what I'm hearing from property managers on really all sides of the industry is that there's now this, in

06:18certain markets that have been high supplied,

06:21renters, even if affordability is a non-factor, they're conditioned to expect a deal.

06:25So I equate it to, like, when you buy a car, you go to the dealership, you know you're not

06:28paying MSRP.

06:29It's just a question of how much further down you can go.

06:32And so it's really more about marketing than anything else.

06:34And so I do think concessions are going to be sticky.

06:37And one of the things that I'm starting to see a little bit of is that you see property managers

06:41are increasing the asking rent, but keeping the concession.

06:45And that's just, again, it's more of a marketing tactic than it is a demand stimulant.

06:48You just want to capture, you know, an outside share of that demand pool.

06:52I mean, that's my question from the outside looking in.

06:54It's like, okay, if average rent is, you know, X amount, but, you know, we expect two months of concessions

07:00on that, that's not the average rent.

07:02The average rent is actually, you know, down for that.

07:05So how do you look at that?

07:06How do you, what do you look at when you look at median rent or what's going up or down?

07:11Yeah, no, I think you have to look at what we call the effective rent, which is the asking rent

07:15minus the offered concession.

07:17And that's, you know, there's, I mean, we're in an era when everybody, every single website has data.

07:22And I, you know, I've always get a little irritated with, you know, some random website trying to get publicity.

07:27So they put up press release saying that, I remember once saying like rents in one bedroom apartments in Austin

07:32are down 25%.

07:33And I'm thinking like, yeah, rents are down, but they're not down 25% in Austin.

07:38And so, so, so yeah, you do have to look at what the concession baked in.

07:42And I, again, I think one of the things you're gonna see right now is that, or start to see

07:45more of, I should say, is that the concessions are going to stay heavy, but the rents are going to

07:49go up.

07:49Just because, again, you keep a month free, but you're, you're going to increase at 8%, which is the equivalent

07:55of a month free.

07:57Great point.

07:58Great point.

07:58So you, you recently listed out the top 20 markets for rent growth.

08:03So we'd love to talk about where those top 20 markets are and what are some of the things that

08:08they have in common?

08:10Yeah, well, it's funny because if you listen to the narrative today, you would think that are all going to

08:13be an institutional heavy market.

08:14It's going to be single family rentals in Atlanta and Jacksonville.

08:17Well, neither one's above the national average, you know, just a conspiracy theory busted there.

08:23And then on the apartment side, it's, it's really the same story.

08:26It's, um, a lot of the, the rent growth is really concentrated in lower supplied, less institutional markets across the

08:33Midwest, the Northeast.

08:34And then of course, obviously the really hot one is the San Francisco Bay area, especially San Francisco and San

08:40Jose.

08:41And now it's starting to extend East into the East Bay, Oakland area.

08:45Um, and that market's absolutely on fire, but also built really no, very few apartments.

08:49There's obviously they don't even do many single family rentals, um, over this entire decade.

08:54So from your perspective, that's much more about just, you know, uh, demand has risen, but there's no, there's no

08:59supply coming in.

09:00Yeah. When you look at San Francisco, it's, it's obviously San Francisco is a very unique story.

09:05I mean, you look at, uh, you know, COVID hit, I mean, arguably there's no city impacted more from COVID

09:10than San Francisco.

09:12Uh, you know, quality of life issues, people leaving the office, working from home, a lot of the tech companies

09:17in the Silicon Valley and San Francisco itself, uh, that really impacted that market.

09:22And, um, and these last couple of years, what we saw was that, um, you know, demand started to come

09:28back into that market.

09:29The quality of life improved. Um, I had a chance to visit San Francisco a year ago and, uh, you

09:34know, it felt a lot more normal again.

09:36And people are out there on out walking around and that quality, you feel like it's getting back to itself.

09:41And obviously the, the, the tech boom there, the AI boom, I should say, uh, that's driving a lot of

09:46that as well.

09:46So the demand's back, but you know, supply hasn't, it takes a while to get supply to ramp back up.

09:51And so, um, you know, we've seen that last number, I think it was 13% rent increases in San

09:56Francisco.

09:57Um, you know, but, but I would just remind people too, I mean, San Francisco is a boom bust market.

10:01It's never 3%, you know, you got to track it with inflation.

10:04It's, it's always the absolute best or absolute worst market in the country.

10:08Yeah, that's good context. Um, you know, we talk about the sunbelt and that, that could be a, um, whether

10:15we're talking about, you know, uh, homes for, you know, to purchase or, um, single family rental or multifamily.

10:23I think it's such a hard thing to get your mind wrapped around because the sunbelt can be very different

10:28and the markets within it.

10:29I mean, just when I think about Texas markets, I mean, very different El Paso versus Austin versus Dallas versus

10:35Houston.

10:35So, but what did you see in those top 20 markets for rent growth? Um, talk about anything in the

10:41sunbelt there.

10:42Yeah, I love that question because you're right. You know, I think so often people, especially I think our, our

10:48fellow analysts and research nerds, they like to oversimplify things into like sunbelt versus coast.

10:53And there's so much nuance in that. I mean, I'll talk about the sunbelt obviously, but even like we're talking

10:57about California, like San Francisco, it is so much different from Los Angeles, which has become, you know, probably the,

11:04the least attractive, uh, major MSA for rental housing investors over the last five or six years.

11:11So, uh, in terms of like major coastal MSA, I should say. So, um, yeah, the same is true in

11:16the sunbelt. It's a wide range of performances.

11:18I think the key thing right now in the sunbelt is the, is the second derivative of rent growth. It's

11:24the, it's the change in the change. And I'll, I'll give you a great example.

11:26Like in Austin, Texas, it's been the poster child for, um, uh, supply excess supply in this cycle. They had

11:33the, of, of large markets had the biggest supply boom. And obviously we saw a lot in the single family

11:37side as well.

11:39But what we see there is it's gone from the biggest rent cuts in the country to now still some

11:45of the biggest rent cuts in the country. But the swing has been, I'm going to get the exact numbers

11:49wrong, but something like negative 8% in March to now, as of last month, I think it was negative

11:553%.

11:56So that was about a 500 bps swing. We're going to, it's still negative, but it's that, that, that second

12:02derivative, the change in the change that we call momentum, like that is swinging really notably.

12:07And it's correlated with the drop-off in supply. And then we're seeing that happening all across. And, and I

12:13would tell you that the ones that are really ahead of the curve right now are supply dropped off faster.

12:16We're seeing places like, uh, South Florida, uh, especially West Palm beach, Palm beach County. Uh, we're seeing it in

12:23Charleston, South Carolina. We're seeing it in Virginia beach.

12:26Uh, there's a handful of others, but those are ones that are already into positive territory for the most part.

12:31A lot of the other ones are kind of approaching zero, uh, which is still an improvement from where they

12:35were.

12:36You know, our lead analyst, Logan Motoshami makes the, makes the case quite a bit that the builders are very

12:41efficient sellers. They're also, um, they understand whether it's, you know, uh, new homes or, you know, single family, multifamily,

12:48whatever they're, they're not going to, they're, they're going to cut back on supply when they see it like this.

12:54So is this just a result of the last three years starts being down, uh, less supply coming online just

13:00generally?

13:01Absolutely. I mean, again, I think it's, you know, all of us spend a lot of time trying to, I

13:05think, you know, talk about all these different factors, but it's just, it's end of the day.

13:08I mean, I think like Logan said, it's just, it's not that complicated. It's just supply and demand. And, um,

13:14and yes, I think you're right. Supply is pulling back, but I think it's also worth adding the context that

13:18we're, this hasn't been true for single family,

13:20but for multifamily, we've been coming out of the biggest supply wave since the late 1970s. I mean, this is

13:27a generational supply wave that was brought about by a perfect storm of factors from cheap debt to inflationary demands,

13:33inflationary rent growth, and also for other more complicated reasons, a lot of capital kind of moving away from buying

13:39older apartments into, uh, focused on new construction and just seeing better, uh, yields in that space.

13:45And so, um, that I, I look at this as kind of a once in a generation event. And I

13:50think what's happening now is supply is moderating and they were going to get back more to, you know, it's

13:55not, again, not evaporating, it's moderating to more sustainable levels.

13:58And I think that's ultimately going to help assuming the economy is in halfway decent shape. I think it's going

14:02to bring the, um, the rental market back into more balance.

14:06Let's talk about the Midwest because, um, we've been seeing some, some pretty hot and interesting or, or surprising markets

14:13on the single family side.

14:15What do you see on the rental side?

14:17Yeah, it's the same thing. I love talking about the Midwest. I love visiting these Midwest cities. I'm talking about

14:21them because it's like, I always equate it. And I like, not, not, I'm the only one. I didn't make

14:25up this analogy, but you know, the analogy of the, of the tortoise and the hare, like the Midwest is

14:29the tortoise.

14:30The hare has been either the coastal cities or the sunbelt cities, depending on the point in a cycle. And,

14:35uh, I can't tell you, Sarah, the number of times, like I do a lot of traveling in my, in

14:39my job, meeting with different investment groups.

14:41And I, over the years, especially pre COVID, I met with a lot of Midwest based, um, rental housing investors

14:47in cities like Cleveland and Milwaukee and, um, uh, Omaha and et cetera.

14:53And they were investing outside of their own regions. And I'd be like, Hey, well, what's, what's wrong with, with

15:00Ohio or Michigan or Indiana, Indiana and, um, Wisconsin.

15:04And, and, and, and I'd always hear it was like, well, you know, our investors, uh, they love living here,

15:10but they don't see the opportunity here.

15:12They, they want to be where the growth is. And I get that. And I think that's been good, but

15:15I think what's happened is it's, it's, it's, um, we've created an environment for these last few cycles where some

15:22of these markets are losing more housing units to obsolescence.

15:26I mean, just not even just demolitions. I mean, you have, you know, whole neighborhoods that just, you know, essentially

15:31be kind of fall off the map and, and you're losing more homes than you are actually building.

15:36And I think that's been the big driver. I think, I think sometimes we almost like, I mean, we've seen

15:41obviously steady demand in the Midwest, we're not seeing the out migration trends that we did in 90s, early 2000s,

15:47but, but the bigger factor I think is really just been that these are chronically undersupplied markets with relatively little,

15:54what I would call quality rental housing.

15:56And so when you do have that, and there's, there is again, steady demand of those markets, it's driven, it's

16:02driven, I think, um, not off. It's not like a San Francisco numbers. I mean, it's driven just steadier performance.

16:07It's a lower ceiling, but also a higher floor in the Midwest. And I think that's true for all types

16:13of housing.

16:14I think that's so interesting. That's not something that I usually think of at all. It's like, just like, Hey,

16:18they're just, they're things going offline, not because they've been rented, but because they can be rented. They're, they're just

16:24not there.

16:25What you made a point in, um, on your LinkedIn post recently about like, who's going to be best prepared

16:31for as demand rises. It's not maybe who you think it could be people in the Midwest who it's like,

16:37it's not that they, um, are building a lot or whatever. Who do you think is, are like the winners

16:42and losers of this market?

16:44Well, I mean, right now I think the Midwest owners have done really well. We've seen more institutional interest in

16:50those markets. Um, you've also seen, I'll give you an example. One of the, one of the, uh,

16:55uh, uh, I think the third largest apartment owner in the country, uh, Morgan properties are based in Philadelphia. And,

17:01um, you know, they, they've bought more than 5,000 units in the Midwest apartment units, um, since COVID. And

17:07we're seeing others that are getting more aggressive as well.

17:10And so I think the Midwest has been a clear winner from this, you know, going forward though, I do

17:14think this changes. I think the Midwest advantages is just more steady. Again, it's, it's, it's the floor has been

17:19lower. So I'm sorry, the floor has been higher, but it also, I think you have to, we all recognize

17:23has a lower ceiling as well.

17:24And so I think by the, over the next couple of years, we're going to see some of these higher

17:28growth, but now suddenly lower supplied markets start to jump back on the list again. So not that the Midwest

17:35doesn't have its opportunities. I think there's a good value in having a, you know, kind of a lower beta

17:39market and you're in a, in a regional or national portfolio. But I, I think, uh, assuming the economy holds

17:45up and, uh, demand drivers hold up at least moderately strong. I think the balance will start shifting again.

17:52Let's talk about Florida. You mentioned it, uh, a little bit ago. Florida of course has been the, um, the

17:58topic of much speculation. And also we've, we've just seen a lot happen there, right? We, we saw lots of

18:03migration in migration. Then we, you know, they've had their challenges as far as affordability. When you think about, uh,

18:09property insurance, other things, um, are any of those top 20 markets in Florida?

18:15Yeah. So I, I mentioned South Florida, but I, I think, I think, you know, Sarah, that probably everybody listening

18:20that South Florida is basically a different state from, you know, central and Northern Florida and the peninsula, uh, or

18:26the panhandle, sorry. Um, and, um, it's, uh, it's, so it's different story down there. Uh, we are seeing, um,

18:34some of the weakest apart markets right now and really rental markets, I should say, are tertiary, uh, Florida markets,

18:42places like Fort Myers, Naples,

18:45Sarasota, Fort Walton beach, you know, these have been just really slow markets of late with a lot of supply

18:51and, uh, demand has not been as robust. It's not falling off dramatically, but the demand is not strong, not

18:57keeping up with supply. And I think a large part of the Florida story is like, I know there's a

19:02lot of angst about Florida right now. And for good reason, but I look at it, you know, I've seen

19:07the migration numbers have come down a little bit. My, and I could be wrong on this, but I'm in

19:11the camp of, I think Florida just,

19:14maybe stole forward a lot of future demand in 21, 22, and 23. And by that, what I mean is

19:20like, um, I think you have Florida always is going to be a migration pole, but you know, and I'm,

19:26I'm always really leery about sharing anecdotes.

19:28Cause I don't, I know anecdotes don't equal a trend, but you know, I'll share a story about, uh, my,

19:33my brother was living in New York city, him and his wife.

19:36They had a kid living in Manhattan. She's from Florida. And then once they're in the middle of COVID after,

19:43you know, waiting out for so long, eventually, Hey, we're going to end up in Florida.

19:46Anyway, why don't we just go ahead and move down there now, instead of waiting three, four years from now,

19:50when we originally were thinking about it, when the kid goes to school and, um, and I, and you see

19:55the numbers.

19:56And I think they sort of reflect that where you had this, this, just, this totally unsustainable, massive migration boom

20:01in those early part of this decade.

20:04And, and by the way, I think no one really thought those numbers were sustainable, obviously. I mean, we all

20:08knew it was a, it was a unusual event, but I think now as you've seen this pullback and it's

20:13actually, you look at Texas, Carolinas, Tennessee, it's more reverted to long-term, like the pre COVID averages of migration.

20:20Florida has overly reverted, meaning it's like it's below its pre COVID trend. And I think again, some of that's

20:25because again, we, we stole some future demand, but I still think all the drivers in Florida are there for

20:30the longterm.

20:30And I think that market's going to be fine. It's just a question of how long it takes.

20:34Really interesting. Yeah. Um, okay. Let's talk about the fact that, um, the Q2 earnings came in, right? We've been,

20:41we've been covering all sorts of things. And what you see for REITs is that they actually showed, uh, some

20:46positive news on their expenses.

20:49And I, you know, when I was digging into that, I was like, well, is that because of AI? Like,

20:53are they being more efficient because of AI? Didn't seem like that. Tell me, what's your take on, on why

20:58they are, um, let me, let me re, let me rephrase this.

21:03So what's your take on, uh, what's responsible for that?

21:08Yeah, it's a great question. I was, I was a little surprised by that too. Um, now, first of all,

21:13I'll go back up a little bit.

21:13You know, we had expense pressures have been a big problem for, uh, really all rental housing operators, a cup

21:19for past few years, but over the last 12 months or so, it's really gotten better.

21:24Um, you know, obviously as property values have not stopped shooting up a stabilized property tax, uh, uh, rates or

21:30to payments, uh, insurance numbers have really calmed down after going crazy.

21:34In many cases, we're seeing insurance premium cuts, but what was really interesting to me, and I was more struck

21:38by is not as obvious, those things were sort of known, but with all the concerns about reaccelerating inflation and

21:44seeing some of that in the broader economy,

21:46I was surprised that a lot of the reads were saying was across the board. They were seeing things like

21:51maintenance costs and payroll and a lot of ancillary items as well.

21:56And, and I think AI obviously plays some role in that. I mean, there's been a big push towards centralization

22:01and automation, but that's been going on for a while, but to see that again, the, the expense trends really

22:06not be like one thing anymore, but really just, Hey, across the board, we are seeing, uh, better than expected

22:13expense trends. Like that, that really was a surprise. And, uh, and again, I looked at every single REIT earnings

22:18call and almost all of them were basically saying the same thing.

22:23That's pretty incredible and good for them. Right. Um, if there's some of that, that they're controlling and maybe some

22:28of that's just environmental at this particular time.

22:32Absolutely. Yeah. And there's been a big, I mean, I think everyone's been, uh, focused on controllable expenses for a

22:38long time, but, but obviously the, I mean, certain things are controllable until they aren't. I mean, like things like

22:42utilities, we call it controllable, but it's really not controllable. And so to still see, um, improvement in that area

22:48and maintenance costs, things like that. I mean, they're not, they're not letting units, obviously,

22:51uh, you know, uh, you know, just letting major repairs go undone. I mean, these, these companies don't do that,

22:57um, for the most part, this guy, as far as I know. And so the fact that they can see

23:01these, these positive trends and some of them are rising down expense guidance was, um, in this environment, I think

23:06pretty interesting.

23:08Okay. Well, I'm going to, uh, we're wrapping up here, but I have to ask you about, uh, what you

23:13expect from the federal reserve meeting in September, of course, because, you know, rents have such a huge effect on

23:19a CPI.

23:20Okay. And so we'd love to get your take. Are they going to raise rates? Um, you think they're going

23:25to hold where they are? What do you think?

23:28Well, first of all, I don't know, but I've, I've, uh, I feel like I'm every time I, I, I,

23:33I make a guess here, I ends up being wrong. And I like the mainstream consensus has been. So, um,

23:38if I, if you're forced me to pick, I would say they hold, but I could, but I say that

23:42with a very low degree of confidence.

23:43Now I will answer the other part though. I think the rent piece of this has been super interesting and

23:48it didn't get enough attention early on when, uh, you know, earlier in this decade, when it started to be

23:53a big driver in the CPI numbers.

23:55And I wish I will say this, I think that there's, I think people have to understand that there's a

24:00big difference between what, what I would call like real life rents. Well, you know, what we see were being

24:05reported in the news and from the major data providers and what we see being reported by the Bureau of

24:10Labor Statistics in their CPI data.

24:12It is, it is, it is, it is very different data. And I could, we could spend a whole podcast

24:17just talking about this, but it is much, it is a much more smoother data set. That's not designed to

24:22capture real-time shifts. In fact, you know, just real quick, I won't get into this too much, but like,

24:27I remember when this first got in the radar in 23, we're seeing this acceleration in, in, uh, rent inflation

24:33and CPI. It was like big news. And ironically, at the same time, rents were actually going down fast. They

24:39were shooting the opposite direction,

24:42but the 23 CPI numbers were responding to things that happened in 21 and 22. And so, uh, bottom line

24:48though, is I don't, I think that the, again, the way these, the mechanics of this are built, I think

24:52we will see in the real life rents, some improvement in the second half of this year. I don't think

24:56that's going to show up in the CPI. I think we're seeing more of a stable number around 3%. So

25:00I don't think it's going to be a big item for the second half of this year as the Fed

25:03looks at this topic. Dang. And no chance to actually cut rates, right? That's a, that's what we would all

25:08be hoping for.

25:09Yeah. Everybody in the housing business is open for that. Um, and I think it'd make our jobs more fun,

25:14but, uh, we'll see.

25:16Jay, this has been so much fun. Thanks for being on. We will have you on again, uh, soon. Love

25:20to hear what's going on and, um, all your research. So thanks for being on.

25:24Thank you for having me, Sarah.

Jay Parsons on changes in the rental market

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