Zelman Insights

Our outlook for the nation's population points to a declining number of youths in the coming years and the latest trends reveal a clear geographic divide in where the youngest residents live, reshaping expectations for the housing stock and public services like schools...

Higher rates have made capital more expensive, but strategic investors continue to commit capital to U.S. housing.

Investors and industry operators are becoming more selective about where they deploy capital and what they expect it to accomplish. Across homebuilding, single-family rental, build-to-rent (BTR), and residential land, transactions are being used to acquire scale, enter new markets, add specialized capabilities, and position businesses for growth.

Those priorities shaped a recent Zelman Housing Summit panel on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and capital allocation across housing.

Moderated by Tony McGill, Senior Managing Director & Head of Zelman Investment Banking and Haitham Said, Managing Director of Zelman Investment Banking, the discussion included insight from Scott Eisen, EVP and CIO of Invitation Homes, Eric Marks, Head of M&A at Daiwa House and Steve Benson, Founder & CEO of Essential Housing.

While we had previously expected a gradual recovery in residential markets to begin in 2027, including slight growth in existing home sales and single-family starts, our most recent update reflects a more sanguine outlook for building products suppliers in the near-term. The conflict in Iran is driving inflation in raw materials and freight, mortgage rates have moved meaningfully higher and a volume-led upturn now appears unlikely until 2028...

Homebuilding operating conditions remained challenged through the summer. Affordability, incentive activity, and sales velocity showed little sign of improvement. Even against this choppy backdrop, homebuilder M&A has remained resilient.

For management teams and capital allocators, M&A has remained an important growth vector at a moment when organic expansion is more difficult and slower to come by. In June, we wrote about the range of M&A buyer types and deal structures now active in the industry. Since then, Zelman has advised on two landmark transactions, one that closed in July and another announced in August.

Over the years, we’ve received a steady stream of requests from conference organizers, companies, and industry groups seeking insights from Zelman’s research analysts. From panels and keynote presentations to boardroom briefings and webinars, audiences consistently want direct access to the experts behind the data.

We’re excited to officially formalize that demand with the launch of the Zelman Speakers Bureau.

The new bureau connects organizations with experienced Zelman analysts who bring deep industry knowledge, timely research, and actionable insights to both virtual and in-person events. Whether the audience includes commercial real estate professionals, investors, developers, or housing industry leaders, our speakers deliver perspectives designed to inform decision-making and spark meaningful discussion.

For much of the first half of 2026, one of the biggest questions hanging over the single-family rental industry was not rents, occupancy or housing supply, but Washington. Legislative proposals targeting institutional ownership of single-family homes created significant uncertainty around the industry’s ability to grow, contributing to a slowdown in acquisitions and other investment activity. Invitation Homes, for example, indicated that dealmaking slowed amid the uncertainty, while acquisition activity remained historically subdued...

About 10 years ago, the U.S. began to use its housing stock in what could be called a more efficient manner. More housing units became occupied by full-time residents, resulting in a shrinking share of units classified as "vacant" by Census Bureau's definition. These vacant units include a portion of homes available for sale or rent, second homes, units awaiting repairs, and units that otherwise remain unoccupied. Notably, based on Census ACS vacancy data (which differs a bit from Decennial Census data, as explained in our recent demographic report, A Decade Divided, over the five years ending in 2024, the vacancy rate for the U.S. declined by 260 basis points to 9.5%...

Building products suppliers reported median organic revenue growth of just under 2% in 2Q26, accelerating from a 1% decline in the first quarter of the year. However, the better result was not driven by an underlying improvement in residential demand, but rather, a step-up in price realization following oil-spike driven cost increases. Additionally, a number of suppliers did benefit from market share gains in the quarter...

For much of this decade, one phrase has dominated conversations about housing: the housing shortage. It has become the default explanation for everything from elevated home prices to constrained affordability and tight inventory. While those challenges are real, they do not necessarily point to a single conclusion. Our latest research takes a fresh look at the demographic forces shaping housing demand, and the findings suggest the conversation deserves greater nuance...

Second quarter homebuilder earnings have delivered a split verdict on the new home market. Among publicly traded homebuilders, which represent roughly 55% of the new home market, orders were a bit softer than we expected, but builders did a better job controlling costs and protecting margins than the order results alone would suggest...