The multifamily development industry is splitting in two. Less-capitalized developers are pulling back on new construction as high financing costs, elevated development expenses, and softening rent growth squeeze margins. Meanwhile, well-capitalized, institutionally backed platforms are treating the downturn as an opening, building out leadership teams, entering new markets, and locking in senior talent while competitors sit on the sidelines. The split shows up clearly in who's hiring, where, and for what.
The dividing line is access to capital. Firms that can get deals done and have the balance sheet behind them are expanding, often aggressively. Firms without that access aren't weighing growth at all; they're focused on holding on to the people they have. It's less a story about who wants to grow than about who can afford to.
Capital isn't the only factor. The developers still closing deals tend to be the ones that have built real operating efficiencies into underwriting, entitlements, and execution. Firms carrying heavier overhead or slower internal processes are struggling to make deals pencil even when capital is technically available, and efficiency has become nearly as decisive as capital itself.
I've advised two of the firms reflected in this piece directly on their regional hiring strategies, which is part of why this pattern stood out so clearly once I started comparing notes across the industry.
The Backdrop: A Slower, More Selective Market
Construction starts have cooled sharply from the 2022 peak of roughly 547,000 units to about 355,000 in 2024, with a modest 2025 rebound to an estimated 413,000.1 NAHB projects a further 5% decline in 2026, to roughly 392,000 starts;1 Fannie Mae's own monthly forecast has swung between 380,000 and the low 440,000s this year, best read as directional given frequent revisions.2
Vacancy is uneven by geography, though the gap is narrowing. Sun Belt markets ran in the mid-to-high 8% range against a national average near the mid-4s in late 2025;3 by mid-2026, CBRE put national vacancy at 4.8%4 and Marcus & Millichap had Sun Belt metros near 6.3% versus roughly 4.1% elsewhere.5 Sun Belt markets are still absorbing an unprecedented supply wave, while the Midwest, Northeast, and select coastal markets remain steadier.
Financing has loosened modestly: the FHFA raised 2026 GSE multifamily loan purchase caps to a combined $176 billion, up about 20% from $146 billion in 2025.6 But underwriting remains conservative, keeping the bar high for which projects break ground, and which firms have the pipeline to justify aggressive hiring.
The Strategy
Among the firms expanding, a consistent pattern has emerged. Rather than running new-market entry through a centralized national team, they hire a single senior, market-embedded leader, typically a regional managing director or development partner, and give that person the mandate to build sourcing, entitlements, and execution in a new geography from the ground up. This pattern is exemplified in two programmatic expansions with which I have been involved on behalf of two different clients.
- The staged national rollout. One large, vertically integrated owner-operator-developer launched a dedicated national platform and expanded it market by market, roughly one new market every four to six weeks: two Southeastern states in quick succession, then a Mid-Atlantic market, a Northeastern coastal metro, and Texas. Each entry was announced separately and led by a newly hired regional executive, and the firm declared its national expansion complete after installing dedicated leadership across five markets in under a year.
- The first-ever geographic pivot. A well established single-region developer made its first expansion beyond its Southeast home market in 2025 and 2026, moving into Western and Sun Belt markets. The expansion was anchored on a single senior hire tasked with building a regional platform from scratch, not a corporate relocation or acquisition.
Talent Is Consolidating Around a Smaller Pool of Firms
The executives filling these regional roles are drawn from a recognizable, relatively short list of established national developers and operators. A handful of large platforms recur as "feeder" companies, and in several cases the same one or two firms appear as the prior employer for regional hires at multiple unrelated expanding platforms in the same year.
Capital, and the talent that follows it, is consolidating around a narrower set of well-funded firms. Developers with slower pipelines are effectively, and sometimes involuntarily, serving as a training ground for the executives who leave for growth-stage competitors. The same small bench of proven "market-entry" operators gets bid for repeatedly, since a track record of standing up one regional platform is treated as the main qualification for standing up the next.
A Geographic Split Within the Expanding Group
Even among expanding firms, where they expand isn't uniform. Most 2025 hiring pointed to Sun Belt and Western markets, such as Arizona, Nevada, Texas, and Colorado, consistent with the population and job-growth narratives firms cite almost universally. However 2026 has seen hires in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
That shift tracks the vacancy data: Sun Belt markets are working through a new-supply glut and softer fundamentals, while steadier coastal and Northeastern markets have posted more consistent rent growth. The pattern looks less like a clean two-stage Sun-Belt-then-coastal story and more like firms hedging across both market types from early in the rollout, treating high-growth and high-barrier markets as complementary bets rather than sequential ones.
What It Adds Up To
Four threads run through the 2026 hiring landscape:
- Access to capital, not appetite for growth, is the real dividing line. A small number of well-capitalized, often institutionally backed platforms are hiring aggressively into a down market, while the broader industry has cut development and dealmaking headcount by half or more since the 2021–2023 peak. The firms pulling back aren't choosing caution over growth; they simply can't fund it, and are focused on retention.
- Operating efficiency is becoming as important as capital. Among well-funded firms, the ones actually closing deals have streamlined underwriting, entitlements, and execution. Heavier overhead is keeping some otherwise capitalized firms from moving as fast as their balance sheets would suggest.
- New-market entry runs through individual regional leaders, not centralized teams. A single embedded executive with local relationships and deal flow has become the standard unit of geographic expansion.
- The same small talent pool keeps getting redistributed. A short list of established national platforms functions as the de facto training ground for the executives who go on to lead new buildouts elsewhere, and expansion-minded firms are repeatedly competing for the same handful of proven operators.
- Market selection within the expanding group isn't uniform. Firms building national platforms are interleaving high-growth Sun Belt markets with steadier, high-barrier ones rather than betting on population growth alone.
For developers with the balance sheet to expand, 2026 is a rare window to acquire market position and senior talent at a relative discount. For everyone else, the defensive posture of protecting talent, tightening operations, and waiting for the starts cycle to turn looks like the dominant strategy into the back half of the year.
1. NAHB, "Multifamily Market Expected to Cool in 2026 as Vacancies Rise" (Feb. 17, 2026): https://www.nahb.org/news-and-economics/press-releases/2026/02/multifamily-market-expected-to-cool-in-2026-as-vacancies-rise
2. Yield PRO, Fannie Mae monthly multifamily starts forecast tracking, e.g. "Future Multifamily Starts Seen Rising in July Forecast" (July 2026): https://yieldpro.com/2026/07/future-multifamily-starts-seen-rising-in-july-forecast/
3. The Newport Group, "Multifamily Development Hiring In 2026: Underwriting, Construction, And Lease-Up Roles" (citing CBRE and Marcus & Millichap Q3 2025 data): https://newportsearch.com/multifamily-development-hiring-in-2026-underwriting-construction-and-lease-up-roles/
4. CBRE, "Q1 2026 U.S. Multifamily Figures": https://www.cbre.com/insights/figures/q1-2026-us-multifamily-figures
5. CRE Terminal, "National Multifamily Capital Allocation 2026" (citing Marcus & Millichap, May 2026 Multifamily Outlook): https://creterminal.com/updates/national-multifamily-capital-allocation-2026-36333106744281f398e8d21d10ef3bef
6. FHFA, "U.S. Federal Housing Announces 2026 Multifamily Loan Purchase Caps for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac" (Nov. 24, 2025): https://www.fhfa.gov/news/news-release/u.s.-federal-housing-announces-2026-multifamily-loan-purchase-caps-for-fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac
