The combined total of new jobs among these top 10 markets (166,000 jobs) was almost 50% greater than their combined annual gains in February and 13.3% greater than one year ago:

On the downside, the Northeast region is facing steep job cuts with 107,900 fewer jobs for the year in Washington, DC, and significant declines in New York, Boston, Baltimore and Philadelphia. The Midwest region was not spared from declining employment levels as Detroit, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Toledo and Pittsburgh also reported job cuts for the year-ending March.

Unlike the top job gain markets, which tend to be large in population and employment, smaller markets usually dominate the top markets for annual percentage change in employment. 

Other top 20 large markets in the 1% to 1.1% growth range included San Diego, Dallas, Raleigh/Durham and Austin.

Source: RealPage

From the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s 2026 Survey of Consumer Expectations Housing Survey in 2026:

Renters reported a 36.6% average probability of moving within the next three years, down from 57.5% in 2016.

Source: Chandon Economics

Where renters are searching:

Most affordable cities ranked:

	City	Median Household Income	Current Average One-Bedroom Rent	Rent-to-Income Ratio
1	Colorado Springs, CO	$94,742	$1,299	16.5%
2	Austin, TX	$81,906	$1,387	20.3%
3	Seattle, WA	$114,915	$2,092	21.8%
4	Raleigh, NC	$75,944	$1,383	21.9%
5	Portland, OR	$83,502	$1,521	21.9%
6	Arlington, VA	$130,144	$2,378	21.9%
7	Fort Worth, TX	$68,568	$1,270	22.2%
8	Phoenix, AZ	$70,283	$1,303	22.2%
9	Indianapolis, IN	$59,562	$1,123	22.6%
10	San Antonio, TX	$56,185	$1,072	22.9%
11	Denver, CO	$85,001	$1,622	22.9%
12	Columbus, OH	$60,250	$1,168	23.3%
13	Kansas City, MO	$64,541	$1,252	23.3%
14	Minneapolis, MN	$71,217	$1,415	23.8%
15	Sacramento, CA	$77,825	$1,566	24.1%
16	Charlotte, NC	$72,329	$1,470	24.4%
17	Las Vegas, NV	$61,425	$1,281	25.0%
18	Honolulu, HI	$82,847	$1,735	25.1%
19	San Jose, CA	$130,163	$2,731	25.2%
20	Houston, TX	$56,401	$1,184	25.2%
21	Atlanta, GA	$77,337	$1,630	25.3%
22	Madison, WI	$70,080	$1,514	25.9%
23	Jacksonville, FL	$60,187	$1,304	26.0%
24	Saint Louis, MO	$50,989	$1,148	27.0%
25	Charleston, SC	$80,020	$1,853	27.8%
26	Washington, DC	$95,873	$2,258	28.3%
27	Cincinnati, OH	$48,227	$1,141	28.4%
28	Dallas, TX	$58,908	$1,403	28.6%
29	Irvine, CA	$121,839	$2,924	28.8%
30	Pittsburgh, PA	$57,869	$1,416	29.4%
31	Hoboken, NJ	$154,993	$3,795	29.4%
32	Long Beach, CA	$74,211	$1,834	29.7%
33	Nashville, TN	$67,531	$1,677	29.8%
34	San Diego, CA	$95,644	$2,391	30.0%
35	Tampa, FL	$65,588	$1,641	30.0%
36	Milwaukee, WI	$47,042	$1,208	30.8%
37	San Francisco, CA	$128,655	$3,351	31.3%
38	Orlando, FL	$59,951	$1,578	31.6%
39	Richmond, VA	$53,556	$1,442	32.3%
40	Fort Lauderdale, FL	$78,954	$2,276	34.6%
41	Los Angeles, CA	$74,048	$2,183	35.4%
42	Chicago, IL	$69,230	$2,043	35.4%
43	Philadelphia, PA	$54,633	$1,778	39.1%
44	Jersey City, NJ	$88,358	$3,261	44.3%
45	Bronx, NY	$43,702	$1,633	44.8%
46	Boston, MA	$84,197	$3,536	50.4%
47	Miami, FL	$52,516	$2,230	51.0%
48	Brooklyn, NY	$70,259	$2,994	51.1%
49	Queens, NY	$75,353	$3,436	54.7%
50	New York, NY	$71,116	$4,104	69.3%

Source: ApartmentList

Construction material costs continued climbing in April, extending a sharp escalation that contractors and developers have tracked since the start of 2026.

• Construction input prices rose 1.7% month over month and 6.2% year to date.
• Construction input prices increased more during the first four months of 2026 than they did during the prior three years combined.
• Materials prices were up 7% year-over-year
• Nonresidential construction input costs rose 7.4% year-over-year

Commodity	1 Month Price Change%	12 Month Price Change%	Pre-covid Change%
Softwood lumber	5.5	0.9	26.8
Hardwood lumber	0.5	3.6	42.1
General millworks	0.3	2.2	35.2
Soft plywood products	2.5	(0.1)	60.6
Hot rolled steel bars, plates and structural shapes	4.4	22.1	65.0
Copper wire and cable	(1.3)	11.8	78.0
Builder’s hardware	(0.0)	8.3	38.5
Plumbing fixtures and fittings	0.0	9.0	35.0
Furnaces and heaters	0.2	6.2	51.5
Sheet metal products	0.8	5.8	60.3
Nails	6.9	7.3	29.6
Major appliances	(0.1)	2.3	24.3
Flat glass	1.1	5.7	41.9
Ready mix concrete	0.4	1.7	39.6
Asphalt roofing and siding	0.3	0.7	40.8
Gypsum products	0.2	(1.0)	48.6
Mineral wool insulation	(0.6)	(2.3)	47.8
CPI-U (unadjusted April)	0.9	3.8	29.1

Source: BisNow

Between January 2020 and January 2026, home prices were up 54% while rents were up only 18%.

The widest spread between price growth and rent growth is 51 percentage points, in Charlotte NC:

Source: ApartmentList

Source: ApartmentList

U.S. apartment construction starts declined to approximately 55,000 units nationwide in the first quarter of 2026, a 73% decrease from the peak reached in early 2022 and the lowest quarterly level since 2011.

The number of units under construction nationwide declined to roughly 579,000 in the first quarter of 2026, down more than 50% from its peak in early 2023 and broadly in line with mid-2010 levels.

Source: CoStar

Healthcare and Social Assistance have added nearly 1.8 million private-sector jobs in the US since the end of 2023 while all of other industries combined have lost 127,800 jobs:

New units that still need to lease-up total 612,000 units nationally. That’s down from the peak of 827,000 units in December 2024, but it’s still about 85,000 units above the baseline from five years ago.

New completions in 2026 are estimated to total about 300,000 units. That’s manageable compared to the 10-year average annual absorption of 350,000 units, but if you add the “excess lease-up” units still to work through, that takes us into 2027 before we catch up … and that’s assuming a normalized absorption rate, which isn’t a given.

Source: Jay Parsons

The chart below is a weighted average of the 14 highest-supplied MSAs in the Sun Belt and Mountain markets: Austin, Atlanta, Denver, Phoenix, Raleigh/Durham, Charlotte, Nashville, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Salt Lake City.

If you bought in a high supply Sun Belt market in 2019 and assumed 3.5% rent growth annually for seven years (light blue line below), you would have been exactly right. That proforma estimate converged with the actual actual path rents took (dark blue line below) this spring.

Source: Jay Parsons