CRE This Week - What's impacting the United States market?
September 14, 2026 - US commercial real estate news, macroeconomic indicators and market analysis.
Week of September 14, 2026
Welcome to the latest edition of CRE This Week, curated by Altus Group’s US research team.
Our team has handpicked pertinent and noteworthy market indicators, articles, original research, and significant industry dates that are critical to the US commercial real estate sector. We understand that your time is valuable, so we're excited to deliver research that helps you stay informed and saves you some time each Monday morning.
For more key economic indicators that matter to commercial real estate, see Top Indicators by Major Asset Type.
Economic print
Macro economic factors impacting CRE
NFIB Small Business Optimism Index
The National Federation of Independent Business released the Small Business Economic Trends report for August on September 9, showing the Small Business Optimism Index fell 1.1 points to 98.7, down from July's 99.8. The index remains above its 52-year average of 98.0. Of the ten components, two increased, six decreased, and two were unchanged, led by a 5-point drop in expected business conditions to a net 10%. Earnings trends fell 3 points to a net -19%, and hiring plans fell 3 points to a net 17%. Job openings held near historically high levels at 35%. Price pressure was unchanged, with a net 31% of owners raising selling prices, and 16% now cite inflation as their top problem, tied with taxes. The Uncertainty Index fell 2 points to 89, still well above its historical average of 68.
Softer earnings and business-conditions expectations point to cooling tenant health among small firms, a segment central to neighborhood retail, light industrial, and small office demand. Hiring plans and job openings remain elevated versus history despite the pullback, suggesting labor-driven space demand has moderated rather than stalled. Credit conditions eased slightly, with short-term loan rates down 40 basis points to 7.5%, but persistent price increases signal continued pressure on small-tenant operating costs and rent affordability.
The Federal Reserve released the G.19 report for July on September 8, showing total consumer credit rose at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.2 percent, decelerating from 6.0 percent in June. Nonrevolving credit, covering auto and student loans, accelerated to 4.8 percent from 2.5 percent, while revolving credit, largely credit cards, decelerated to 2.5 percent from 6.0 percent. Total balances outstanding reached $5.186 trillion. Quarterly growth has held in a narrow 2 to 3 percent annualized band since Q4 2025, well below the 5 percent-plus pace common in the 2010s.
For the broader economy, the deceleration in headline credit growth points to a consumer still borrowing but without a durable acceleration in spending appetite, with the rotation toward nonrevolving and away from revolving credit suggesting households are financing larger purchases like autos while pulling back on card-based discretionary spending. For CRE, that mix favors necessity and auto-related retail over discretionary categories like apparel and dining, while credit card rates near 21 percent continue to limit remaining borrowing capacity for discretionary purchases.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the August 2026 PPI on September 10, showing final demand prices rose 0.4% month over month, up from a 0.1% gain in July and a 0.1% decline in June. On an unadjusted basis, final demand prices are up 5.4% year over year, the largest annual gain since early 2026. Core PPI (excluding food, energy, and trade services) rose 0.3% monthly and 4.7% annually. The increase was driven almost entirely by goods, which jumped 1.1% as energy prices rose 4.2%, led by a 24.1% spike in diesel fuel and gains in gasoline and jet fuel. Services prices edged up just 0.1%, as a 2.3% rise in transportation and warehousing offset a 0.2% decline in trade margins.
The print lands one week before the September 16 FOMC meeting, where markets have moved to price a 25 bp hike to 3.75%-4.00% as more likely than not, following Chair Warsh's hawkish Jackson Hole remarks and a solid August jobs report. A hot PPI reading, even one concentrated in energy and freight, adds to the case for a hike rather than a hold. For CRE, that raises the risk of higher floating-rate debt costs and a tougher refinancing backdrop than markets were pricing as recently as this summer, particularly for loans maturing later in 2026.
The National Association of Realtors released the August 2026 Existing-Home Sales report on September 10, showing sales fell 2.0% month over month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.98 million, down 1.2% year over year, the first reading below 4.0 million since June 2025. Inventory rose 3.2% from July to 1.62 million units, the first time supply has topped 1.6 million since November 2019, pushing months' supply to 4.9, a decade high. The median existing-home price rose 1.6% year over year to $429,100, the 38th straight month of annual gains.
Rising inventory continues to shift leverage toward buyers, with the affordability index climbing to 104.7 from 101.2 a year ago. For single-family and build-to-rent operators, that's roughly a wash: higher mortgage rates keep marginal buyers renting, but growing for-sale supply gives them more room to negotiate than in recent years. Investor and second-home buyer share fell to 15% of transactions from 21%, suggesting some pullback from cash-heavy buyers as the market normalizes.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the August Consumer Price Index on September 11, 2026, showing that headline CPI rose 0.4% on the month, in line with consensus, after 0.1% in July, holding the annual rate at 3.4%. Gasoline rose 3.9% and accounted for more than a third of the headline increase, pushing energy up 2.1% on the month and 16.3% year over year. Shelter rose 0.3%, up from 0.1% in July. Core CPI rose 0.3%, a tenth above consensus, with the annual core rate easing slightly to 2.4% from 2.5%. Airline fares, communication, and used vehicles drove the monthly core gain; motor vehicle insurance and medical care declined.
The report lands amid a sharp energy-driven repricing in rates. Oil rose above $100 a barrel on the escalating US-Iran conflict, diesel hit a record $6 a gallon, and the 10-year Treasury has climbed to approached 5%, its highest since October 2023, pushing mortgage rates above 7%. The hotter core print pushed CME FedWatch odds of a 25 bp hike at the September 16 FOMC meeting to just under 90%, up from 70% Thursday and 50% one month ago. For CRE, that reverses the easing narrative that had prevailed through most of the year: borrowing costs are moving higher rather than lower, cap rate pressure is back in play, and the energy shock adds a new input-cost variable for construction on top of existing tariff pressure.
University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment
The University of Michigan's preliminary Consumer Sentiment Index for September fell to 47.8 from 51.7 in August, down 13.2% year over year and the second straight monthly decline. Current Economic Conditions slipped to 50.9 from 51.9, while Expectations dropped more sharply to 45.8 from 51.5. Year-ahead inflation expectations jumped to 4.6% from 4.0%, the highest since June, while long-run expectations ticked up to 3.4%. Sentiment is now 16% below February and 13% below a year ago.
The drop reflects rising fuel prices and trade tensions weighing on consumers' near-term outlook, though five-year business condition expectations held steady, suggesting no shift in the long-run view. As a sentiment measure rather than actual spending data, owners should be cautious about reading too much into a single month, but the combination of weaker expectations and firmer inflation views is worth watching for discretionary retail and hospitality demand into the fourth quarter.
News
News to know
25 Years After the Sept. 11 Attacks, Lower Manhattan Is Thriving (Wall Street Journal, 2026-09-07)
Lower Manhattan's population has roughly tripled since the September 11 attacks, with more than 230,000 people now working there, nearly matching pre-attack levels. Office-to-residential conversions have driven much of the turnaround, with 23 projects planned or under construction and total downtown apartment inventory reaching more than 37,000 units by early 2026, up from roughly 13,000 in 2000. The tenant base has diversified, with financial and real estate firms now accounting for roughly a third of downtown employment, down from about two-thirds a quarter-century ago, as media and tech companies have moved in, including American Express's July groundbreaking on a new 55-story headquarters at the World Trade Center site. The recovery remains uneven: downtown's office vacancy rate stood at 22% in July versus about 18% in Midtown, according to Cushman & Wakefield, and the former Deutsche Bank site across from the World Trade Center remains undeveloped.
GoDocs Sees Rise in Multifamily Lending Volume, Loan Size (Connect CRE, 2026-09-08)
Commercial loan document automation platform GoDocs reported a 17.2% year-over-year increase in multifamily commercial loans processed through its platform in the first half of 2026, alongside an 8.3% increase in average loan size and a 23.3% increase in mean loan size as growth skewed toward larger deals. The trend aligns with broader market data, as Newmark reported a 26% year-over-year increase in multifamily debt originations over the same period alongside historically strong apartment demand. GoDocs volume grew 52.9% year-over-year in the first quarter before slowing to a 3.3% year-over-year decline in the second quarter, though H1 volume overall remained up 17.2% from a year earlier.
San Francisco Centre, once the city's largest mall at 1.5 million square feet, is back on the market after a proposed sale collapsed in July, with bids due this week and brokers expecting no more than $130 million against a $1.2 billion valuation a decade ago. The mall was 93% vacant before closing this year, following Nordstrom's 2023 departure and owner Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield handing the property to lenders owed $558 million. A prior deal fell through over complications tied to the mall's fragmented ownership, including a Macy's-owned former Bloomingdale's space and school district-owned land beneath the property. Surrounding retail on Market Street is recovering, and mall values nationally are up 13% over the past year as investor sentiment toward the sector improves.
MISMO, the real estate finance industry's standards organization, launched two AI governance certifications last month that establish benchmarks for risk oversight, decision-making influence and source-data documentation in automated underwriting systems. The certifications mark a shift from AI tools focused on generating content, such as lease summaries and investment memos, toward requiring auditability once those outputs reach institutional credit committees. The piece argues this will create an "auditability spread" over the next 12 to 18 months, with firms using certified, deterministic software seeing faster deal closings and lower transaction friction, while those relying on unverified black-box outputs face longer credit reviews and higher cost of capital. It also points to a shift away from general-purpose AI tools toward domain-specific architectures that break underwriting into narrow, testable checks, such as document versioning, formula integrity and general ledger cross-referencing, each producing an auditable trail.
Data Center Demand Has Made IOS An Institutional Capital Playground (Bisnow, 2026-09-09)
Institutional capital is deepening its push into industrial outdoor storage as data center construction drives demand even as trucking, IOS's traditional tenant base, weathers a downturn tied to labor shortages and high diesel costs. IOS investment reached $14 billion to $16 billion in 2025, up 15% year over year, with institutional capital now 45% of investment activity versus 30% four years ago, per Matthews data. A record $672 million refinancing between Realterm and Starwood Property Trust in August covered a 78-property, 830-acre portfolio across 33 markets. Nationwide IOS rents hit $11.07 per square foot per month in the second quarter, up 1.6% year over year, with vacancy at 3.6% versus 6.5% for industrial overall, per CBRE. Data center developers now account for about 20% of new IOS demand, using lots for construction staging and equipment storage.
Apartment Demand Loses Momentum as Hiring and Immigration Slow (GlobeSt, 2026-09-10)
Multifamily demand is losing steam as hiring cools and immigration collapses, per a Marcus & Millichap brief. Employers cut 23,000 jobs in July with downward revisions to prior months, though the latest national jobs report showed a 162,000 rebound. Net international migration fell 82%, from 2.3 million in 2024 to 410,000 in 2025, per the CBO, with only a partial rebound to 570,000 projected for 2026. The 30-year mortgage averaged 6.65% on August 20, extending renter tenure but raising acquisition and refinancing costs. Marcus & Millichap favors Class B assets, which combine a lower cost basis than Class A with a steadier renter base than Class C and led transaction velocity gains over the year through August. Supply is retreating too: completions fell 16.8% year over year in July, multifamily deliveries dropped over 25%, and units under construction at midyear were roughly half the early-2023 peak of 1.1 million. Construction material costs rose about 7.5% in the first half of 2026, well above the decade average near 5%. Concessions eased to 15.8% of units in July from a five-year high of 17%.
NYC Mulls Property-Tax Break for $2.7 Billion Hudson Yards Tower (Bloomberg, 2026-09-10)
New York's Industrial Development Agency is set to vote September 15 on a $100 million property tax break for 99 Hudson Boulevard, a proposed 48-story, 1.3 million square foot office tower in Hudson Yards. The $2.7 billion project is scheduled to begin construction in January and open in 2030, and would mark the largest economic subsidy since Mayor Zohran Mamdani took office. The IDA estimates the benefits will cost the city $92.2 million while generating almost $860 million in direct and indirect tax revenue. The developer's prior Hudson Yards tower, The Spiral, houses Pfizer's headquarters along with HSBC, AllianceBernstein and Marshall Wace. A 2018 New School report pegged total taxpayer costs for the broader Hudson Yards redevelopment at $2.2 billion, though the Hudson Yards Infrastructure Corp has since transferred roughly $2 billion in surplus developer revenue back to the city.
INSIGHTS Spotlight
Catch the latest research and insights from Altus
Podcast | Labor data diverges, data centers dominate Beige Book, CRE implications from bond rout
In the latest CRE Exchange, Cole Perry and Omar Eltorai work through a data-heavy week: construction spending, three labor releases, and a full round of PMI readings.
Article | US commercial real estate transaction analysis – Q2 2026
In this analysis, we dig into the data from our Q2 US CRE Investment and Transactions Quarterly report, covering national transaction volume and pricing trends across major property sectors, shifts in the median age of transacted properties, and the growing concentration of deal value in transactions exceeding $10 million.
Important dates
Upcoming data releases and events
Data releases (Times in EDT)
Monday, September 14
8:30AM: Empire State Manufacturing Survey (Sep)
Wednesday, September 16
8:30AM: Retail Sales (Aug)
8:30AM: Import Prices (Aug)
10:00AM: Manufacturing & Trade Inventories (Jul)
10:00AM: NAHB Housing Market Index (Sep)
2:00PM: Federal Reserve Economic Projections
2:00PM: U.S. Interest Rate Decision
Thursday, September 17
8:30AM: Housing Starts (Aug)
8:30AM: Philadelphia Fed Business Outlook Survey (Sep)
8:30AM: Weekly Jobless Claims (Sep 12)
10:00AM: Pending Home Sales Index (Aug)
Friday, September 18
9:15AM: Industrial Production (Aug)
9:15AM: Capacity Utilization (Aug)
10:00AM: Leading Indicators (Aug)
Upcoming Industry Events
September 15–17: AFIRE Annual Member Meeting (New York, NY)
September 23–26: CORFAC Fall Summit 2026 (Chicago, IL)
About our research team
Omar Eltorai
Senior Director of Research
Altus Group
Omar Eltorai is a Research Director at Altus Group. With more than a decade of experience in the industry in investment management and financing roles,
Omar's focus is on macro, capital and market trends affecting the US CRE market. Beyond regularly authoring articles and reports, his commentary and analysis has been featured in various media publications, including: Wall Street Journal, Globe Street, and Yahoo! Finance.
Cole Perry
Associate Director of Research
Altus Group
Cole Perry is a Associate Director of Research with Altus Group's Research team. In this role, Cole delivers key insights into macroeconomics, capital markets, and the broader commercial real estate sector.
Cole boasts a rich background in Commercial Real Estate analytics with previous roles at CompStak and Brixmor Property Group. He holds dual M.S. degrees from Columbia University in Urban Planning and Real Estate Development.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this newsletter are solely those of the authors and are not endorsed by Altus Group Limited, its affiliates and its related entities (collectively “Altus Group”). This publication has been prepared for general guidance on matters of interest only and does not constitute professional advice or services of Altus Group. You should not act upon the information contained in this publication without obtaining specific professional advice. No representation or warranty (express or implied) is given as to the accuracy, completeness or reliability of the information contained in this publication, or the suitability of the information for a particular purpose. To the extent permitted by law, Altus Group does not accept or assume any liability, responsibility or duty of care for any consequences of you or anyone else acting, or refraining to act, in reliance on the information contained in this publication or for any decision based on it. The distribution of this publication to you does not create, extend or revive a client relationship between Altus Group and you or any other person or entity. This publication, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced or distributed in any form for any purpose without the express written consent of Altus Group.
Resources
Latest insights
Sep 10, 2026
Labor data diverges, data centers dominate Beige Book, CRE implications from bond rout
