A Single-Family Rental Marketing Briefing
by REI INK
This month’s “From the Hill” story highlights the New Home Lot Supply Index, Inflation, The Landlord Sentiment Survey, and the National Debt. We would like to thank the National Rental Home Council for providing much of the information.
New Home Lot Supply Index
In Q2 2025, Zonda’s New Home Lot Supply Index rose to 68.4, up 20.6% from a year earlier and marking the fourth straight quarterly increase. Despite this loosening, most markets remained “significantly undersupplied,” a trend in place since 2017.
Slower housing starts driven by uneven buyer demand and increased resale inventory helped push the index to a five-year high. San Francisco, Los Angeles/Orange County, and Tampa saw the largest year-over-year supply gains, while San Diego, Miami, and Baltimore remained the tightest markets.
Some metros, including Austin, Atlanta, and Dallas, were “appropriately supplied,” while Denver and San Antonio were “slightly under-supplied.”
The upcoming lot supply, land likely to be ready within 12–18 months, increased 7.6% year-over-year, with the largest share in the excavation phase.
Overall, the data signals no oversupply but points to capacity for more building once market confidence improves.
Inflation
In July 2025, U.S. consumer prices rose modestly. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.2% in July and was up 2.7% year-over-year. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy, advanced 0.3% on the month and 3.1% annually.
Shelter costs remained a key economic driver, while food prices were flat and energy prices declined. Expectations for a September rate cut were unchanged despite signs of unsettled inflation. Markets still anticipate a 25-basis-point cut next month, though the policy outlook beyond that remains mixed.
Producer prices pointed to stronger inflationary pressures. The Producer Price Index (PPI) for final demand climbed 0.9% in July and 3.3% over the year — the largest annual gain since February. Most of the monthly increase was driven by services, particularly trade margins. Costs also rose across processed goods, unprocessed goods, and services in intermediate demand, signaling broad-based inflation earlier in the production pipeline.
Landlord Sentiment Survey
A mid-2025 survey by RentRedi and Bigger-Pockets revealed a notable shift in landlord plans: Fewer landlords plan to purchase new rental properties compared to late 2024, while more are increasing spending on improvements.
The drop in acquisition intentions is especially sharp in the West, though larger landlords are still more likely than smaller ones to buy. Rising property prices and interest rates are key reasons landlords are stepping back from acquisitions, with approximately 78% citing one of these two factors as the biggest obstacle to property purchases.
Many landlords still plan to spend on home improvement projects. High-cost renovation plans have risen, especially among those with sizable portfolios compared to late last year. Almost two-thirds of large landlords reported planning to spend at least $20,000 per unit on renovations in 2025, up from just 36% in November 2024.
The National Debt
The U.S. national debt is climbing at a rapid pace and has shown no signs of slowing down, despite the growing criticism of massive levels of government spending.
The national debt — which measures what the U.S. owes its creditors — rose to $37,089,430,594,354.58 as of August 15th, according to the latest numbers published by the Treasury Department. That is up about $44 billion from the figure reported the previous day.
Interest payments on the debt for the government’s fiscal year, which begins in October, now exceed the costs of Medicare and the defense budget.
The outlook for the federal debt level is bleak, with economists increasingly sounding the alarm over the torrid pace of spending by Congress and the White House. The latest findings from the CBO indicate that the national debt will grow to an astonishing $54 trillion in the next decade, the result of an aging population and rising federal healthcare costs. Higher interest rates are also compounding the impact of higher debt.
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