release edition [077]

read time [7 minutes]

Welcome to The Multifamily Download, a weekly newsletter where I provide institutional insights to help you build an exceptional Multifamily career.

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Today at a Glance:

• Freedom: America Turns 250
• Jobs: Revisions, Revisions
• Career: Three Questions
• Weekly Listen: The Rent Roll

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America Turns 250

As a grateful and proud American, I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the milestone that is America's 250th birthday.

Countless men and women have served and fought, with many paying the ultimate price to protect the unique and abundant freedoms that are found here in America.

Freedoms are meant to be exercised, because freedoms that are lost are very rarely regained without struggle or bloodshed.

As an American, I value these freedoms, and I intend to do my part to ensure they are not infringed upon in my lifetime.

It takes boldness, a courageous spirit, and a steadfast conviction to fight for these freedoms.

Because as the saying goes, "If you stand for nothing then you'll fall for anything".

I've shared this previously, and I'll share it again, but one of my favorite childhood memories was under the Friday night lights just before kickoff of my high school football games.

Just before our marching band would begin to play the National Anthem, the PA announcer would get on the mic and proclaim, "Tonight, we remember that freedom is not free, lest we forget".

His voice, and that phrase, have always stuck with me.

I will never forget that freedom is not free, and I hope you won't either.

I enjoy this read, and you may too: "25 reasons why America gets to be America".

The 172K That Wasn't

Now, back to Multifamily and the economy.

This past Thursday, the BLS reported June non-farm payrolls at +57,000, well below the 115,000 Dow Jones consensus. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.2% (4.3% expected).

But the revisions were the main story.

Four weeks ago, in TMD 073, I wrote about May's surprisingly strong jobs report: 172,000 jobs compared to a consensus of roughly 80,000.

Fast forward to today, and that 172K number has vanished.

April was revised down 31,000, from 179,000 to 148,000, while May was revised down 43,000, from 172,000 to 129,000.

That "172K blowout" I wrote about in TMD 073 is now a 129K print, and the last two months lost a combined 74,000 jobs we thought existed.

I share this for one reason: Headline prints are fickle because they're always subject to revision.

Every jobs report gets revised twice in the following two months, and then again in the annual benchmark each year.

When the labor market is turning, revisions tend to run in one direction: downward.

Keep an eye on August 28th, when the BLS publishes its preliminary benchmark revision for the year through March 2026.

This begs a key question: Are the 57K jobs added in June considered strong or weak?

Here's where I'll apply the lens that I first wrote about in TMD 064: The Dallas Fed's research put break-even employment, the monthly job growth needed just to hold unemployment steady, at near zero and possibly negative, because labor force growth has collapsed.

The old 100K-150K/month framework seems to be obsolete.

Thus, +57K and a trailing 12-month average of +36K is not the disaster it would have been in 2019, but they're not exactly strong positive indicators, either.

Unemployment holding at 4.2% while payroll growth crawls is exactly what a shrinking-labor-force economy looks like.

But two details in this report are worth noting.

First, labor force participation fell 0.3 points to 61.5%. (For context, when I wrote TMD 064, the low was 61.9%).

People keep disappearing from the workforce, and a falling unemployment rate driven by a shrinking denominator is not strength.

Second, leisure and hospitality lost 61,000 jobs on weaker than usual seasonal hiring. That is a summer demand signal from the industry that employs a large share of workforce housing residents.

Wage growth of +3.5% YoY sustains the narrative that the labor market that is cooling gently rather than cracking.

This setup is consistent with my prediction number one from TMD 052, in that we'd have a weak 1H 2026 with a second-half recovery, which I graded as "tracking" in last week's mid-year scorecard.

As we look head, here are three dates that matter in Q3: The July jobs report on August 7, the preliminary benchmark revision on August 28, and the September FOMC meeting, where Fed Chair Kevin Warsh gets a labor market that increasingly supports his framework rather than fights it.

If revisions keep running negative, the "resilient labor market" narrative may finally fade, and the interest rate conversation may swing dramatically back in the "rate cuts" direction.

Summary

June's 57K job print matters less than the 74,000 jobs revised away from April and May. Measured against the Dallas Fed's near-zero break-even rate, slow payroll growth is quickly becoming the new equilibrium. Even so, falling labor participation and weak seasonal hospitality hiring are tough trends that are worth watching carefully.

Actionable Takeaway

Instead of using headline job print figures, consider using the revised trailing 3-month average for any market-level absorption assumption, and stress-test lease-up timelines for newer assets in markets where leisure and hospitality often drive a significant portion of GDP (i.e. Las Vegas or Orlando).

Halftime Reflection

Last week, in TMD 076, I reflected on how my top 10 Multifamily predictions for 2026 are progressing.

This week, I'm encouraging you to reflect on your career or business.

I've had several personal and professional challenges over the past few months, and these have proven to be great opportunities to take an inventory of who I am, what I believe, where I want to go, and how I'm going to get there.

As I shared on LinkedIn earlier this week, I believe that life is about being willing to revise one's beliefs in the face of new information, and to quickly adapt to reality as it unfolds.

This same lesson applies to both the jobs data and to our careers. April and May jobs data looked one way in real time, and then changed dramatically once the revisions came in.

To this end, in TMD 069, I wrote that the Multifamily career skill that now matters most is the ability to cohesively understand inputs and outputs across the sector, because AI is absorbing more of the operational work.

Here's a quick three-question audit that may be helpful to measure your YTD progress:

1. What can you do today that you couldn't in January?

New capabilities added are tangible career capital, and if your honest answer is "nothing new" then you may consider pursuing a challenging project (or two) in the back half of 2026.

My answer to this question: I have built 25+ Claude Skills, built two websites using Claude Code (more on this soon), and I have setup several recurring automated tasks inside of Claude Cowork.

I now know enough about how AI works to be dangerous, and the proof is visible in my dramatically increased productivity.

2. Who knows your work that didn't in January?

New deals, title promotions, and new job offers often come from visibility. Improving your skillset and work quality is great, but we are in the age of visibility and personal brand.

Putting yourself out there is almost becoming a non-negotiable, especially for those of us earlier in our careers (i.e. less than 40 years old).

3. What can you point to that's tangible?

This is simple, but it's not always easy. Building a list of tangible outputs and outcomes can be powerful for a year-end review, job interview, or when pitching a new client. Start collecting the evidence now so that you have it when you need it.

Reflecting on questions like these in July provides five months for course-correction, whereas waiting until December leads to a full page of resolutions or regrets, or both.

If growth is important to you (which I assume it is since you're reading this newsletter), then please take this reflection moment seriously by setting aside 30-60 minutes to reflect on the first half of your year.

Future you will be glad you did, I promise.

Weekly Listen

This week's listen is The Rent Roll Episode 79 with Jay Parsons and guest Sam Tenenbaum, the head of multifamily research at Cushman & Wakefield.

They discuss where fundamentals and capital markets stand in Q2 2026, as well as the 2023-25 supply overhang that's still working through the system and whether softer job growth is showing up in absorption yet.

You can listen to the full episode here.

Wrap Up

That's it for today. I hope you found this edition of The Multifamily Download insightful.

If so, please forward or share this link with a friend or colleague. It's the single best way to support this newsletter.

Your feedback is appreciated, so feel free to reply anytime.

Thanks for reading, and Happy Fourth! See you next week!

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