Rent inflation for studios to two-bedrooms in the top 50 metros declined for seven consecutive months, with the national median asking price falling to $1,717.

A staggering 19.6% of office space in major U.S. cities wasn’t leased as of the fourth quarter, up from 18.8% a year earlier. That is slightly above the previous records of 19.3% set in 1986 and 1991 and the highest number since at least 1979.

During the third quarter of 2023, big landlords that own anywhere from 100 to more than 1,000 housing units purchased just 1% of all the homes sold in the U.S. This is down from roughly 3% throughout 2022. America’s rental market remains dominated by mom-and-pop landlords, who buy nearly one-in-five of all the U.S. family homes that come up for sale.

Rents for new leases rose more than 20% during two years spanning 2021 and 2022. That growth moderated last year as rents either barely rose or slightly declined with real-estate firms projecting total rent growth in the very low single digits this year.

Nontraded REITs raised $9.8 billion last year, compared with $33.2 billion during all of 2022. Meanwhile, investors redeemed about $17.4 billion, far surpassing the $12 billion redeemed in all of 2022.

Rents averaged $2,000 a square foot on upper Fifth Avenue over the past year. That was about 13% higher than the world’s next-most-expensive shopping destination, Via Montenapoleone in Milan. New York City displaced Hong Kong last year to top the chart for the first time since 2017.

Return-to-office rates have stalled for most of 2023. The average office attendance is about half of its prepandemic level in the 60% to 65% range, but the return rate has seemed to have topped out.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($726,200 or less) decreased to 7.07% from 7.17%, with points falling to 0.59 from 0.60 (including the origination fee) for loans with a 20% down payment. That was the lowest level since July.

The national vacancy rate increased to a record 13.5% in the third quarter of this year, up from 9.4% at the end of 2019.

Blackstone announced the final close on $2.6 billion for its latest real estate secondaries fund, Strategic Partners Real Estate VIII L.P.