CRE This Week - What's impacting the United States market?
July 6, 2026 - US commercial real estate news, macroeconomic indicators and market analysis.
Week of July 6, 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
S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index
S&P Dow Jones Indices released the April 2026 S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Home Price Index on June 30. The National Home Price NSA Index rose 0.8% year over year, up slightly from 0.7% in March. The 20-City Composite gained 1.1% annually, and the 10-City Composite was up 1.8%. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the National Index climbed 0.8% month over month, consistent with typical spring seasonality, though after seasonal adjustment the index dipped 0.1%. With April CPI running at 3.8%, U.S. home values have now declined in real terms for 11 consecutive months. Geographic dispersion remains wide: Chicago led all tracked markets at +6.5% year over year, followed by New York (+3.8%) and Cleveland (+3.2%), while Seattle fell 2.3%, and Denver, Tampa, Dallas, and Phoenix each declined more than 1.5%.
With 30-year mortgage rates back at 6.3% after briefly dipping below 6% earlier this year, the path to ownership remains closed for a large share of households, sustaining rental demand in undersupplied markets. The regional divergence matters for multifamily underwriting: Sun Belt metros facing home price declines also contend with more competition from for-sale inventory and softer rent growth, while constrained Midwest and Northeast markets retain a structural demand tailwind.
The Conference Board released its Consumer Confidence Index for June on June 30. The headline index edged up 0.6 points to 91.2, following a downwardly revised 90.6 in May. The gain was narrow: the Present Situation Index fell 3.0 points to 116.4, with the share of consumers saying jobs are "hard to get" rising to 22.5%, the highest since January 2021. The Expectations Index rose 3.0 points to 74.4, supported by slightly better views on business conditions and income, with falling oil prices cited as the primary driver of improved near-term sentiment.
The headline index remains well below levels consistent with confident consumer spending, and the Expectations Index has now held below 80 for two consecutive months. The Present Situation deterioration, particularly on labor market perceptions, bears watching: if it reflects actual softening in hiring rather than sentiment alone, discretionary retail and hospitality would be most exposed. Homebuying intentions ticked up on a six-month rolling basis, but with 30-year mortgage rates at 6.3%, that shift in attitude is unlikely to drive transaction activity, leaving the demand case for rental housing structurally intact.
Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released May 2026 JOLTS data on June 30. Job openings held steady at 7.6 million, with the openings rate flat at 4.6 percent. Hires were unchanged at 5.2 million, a 3.3 percent rate. Total separations changed little at 5.1 million (3.2 percent rate), with quits at 3.1 million (1.9 percent) and layoffs and discharges at 1.7 million (1.1 percent). The only notable industry movements were a 71,000 increase in wholesale trade job openings and modest changes in federal government hires and quits.
The hires rate at 3.3 percent is the most direct read for office demand, as headcount growth is what ultimately drives space requirements. That rate remains below the 3.7 to 4.0 percent range seen during the active leasing years of 2021 to 2022, and the quits rate at 1.9 percent reflects a workforce with limited mobility, both of which point to muted expansion-driven leasing. For retail, multifamily, and industrial, the labor market is a forward-looking input: a hires rate stuck at current levels constrains income growth and household formation over time, which feeds into consumer spending and rent absorption. The layoff rate holding at 1.1 percent limits near-term occupancy risk across sectors. For the Fed, flat rates across the board provide little impetus to adjust policy, keeping borrowing costs stable in the near term.
ADP Employment + The Employment Situation
ADP and the Stanford Digital Economy Lab released the June 2026 National Employment Report on July 1, showing private-sector payrolls increased by 98,000. Education and health services drove nearly half the total at 48,000, while financial activities added 14,000 and trade, transportation, and utilities contributed 15,000. Professional and business services added just 2,000 positions, and leisure and hospitality posted its sixth consecutive month of weak hiring at 2,000. Construction added only 2,000 jobs.
The BLS Employment Situation, released July 2, told a softer story. Total nonfarm payrolls rose 57,000, well below the ADP private-sector read, with the gap driven largely by leisure and hospitality shedding 61,000 jobs on weaker-than-usual seasonal hiring. Professional and business services led gains at 36,000, followed by social assistance at 25,000 and health care at 22,000. The unemployment rate held at 4.2 percent, average hourly earnings rose 3.5 percent year over year to $37.64, and labor force participation slipped 0.3 percentage points to 61.5 percent. Downward revisions to April and May totaled 74,000, pulling the 12-month average gain to just 36,000 jobs per month.
The labor market is slowing but not breaking. Hiring in professional and business services, the most direct driver of office demand, remains positive but thin. Leisure and hospitality weakness signals softer conditions ahead for hotel operators and experiential retail rather than stress that has already arrived. With payrolls still growing and unemployment stable, the Fed has little cover to cut rates while inflation remains elevated, keeping borrowing costs higher for longer and limiting near-term relief for CRE capital markets.
The U.S. Census Bureau released the Value of Construction Put in Place for May 2026 on July 1. Total construction spending edged up 0.1% from April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2,210.2 billion, though the move falls within the margin of error and is effectively flat on the month. On a year-over-year basis, total spending was down 1.5% from May 2025, and through the first five months of 2026, cumulative spending of $858.4 billion is running 2.7% below the same period last year. Private residential construction ticked up 0.3% to $930.2 billion, while private nonresidential slipped 0.3% to $738.7 billion. Public construction rose 0.5% to $541.2 billion, with gains in both educational ($113.4 billion) and highway ($150.6 billion) spending.
Within private nonresidential construction, manufacturing led the monthly decline, falling 1.3% to $173.6 billion (SAAR) and down 22.0% year over year as IRA- and CHIPS Act-supported factory projects wind down. Commercial construction, which includes retail and warehouse, slipped 0.3% on the month and 5.5% year over year. Health care fell 5.9% year over year and lodging 10.5%, reflecting ongoing caution from developers facing elevated financing costs. Office was the one relative bright spot, up 0.2% on the month and 4.7% year over year at $107.6 billion, consistent with selective Class A development in high-demand markets. All figures are nominal; real declines are larger once inflation is factored in.
News
News to know
News to know
High gas prices and home prices make Atlanta, Nashville less affordable | Bloomberg, June 29, 2026
Bloomberg examined how the Iran war's energy shock, gas prices running roughly 35-40% above pre-war levels, combined with accelerating corporate relocation is eroding the affordability advantage that drove years of migration into Sun Belt metros like Nashville and Atlanta. Nashville illustrates the tension: a $2B Titans stadium, a new Starbucks regional hub, and an 80-acre Oracle campus targeting 8,500 jobs by 2031 are pushing home prices higher even as energy cost inflation disproportionately burdens car-dependent residents. Bloomberg frames this as a structural challenge to the growth narrative that's underpinned years of capital allocation into Sun Belt multifamily and industrial.
Nationwide office visits in May 2026 fell 1.2 percent year-over-year on a raw basis but rose 3.7 percent when adjusting for working days, leaving attendance 32.4 percent below the May 2019 baseline, down from a 34.9 percent gap a year earlier. San Francisco led all major markets with per-working-day visits up 8.2 percent year-over-year, supported by AI-driven leasing demand, its strongest quarterly leasing since 2014, and declining availability. Los Angeles followed at 6.5 percent, with Dallas, Chicago, Miami, New York, and Boston also posting gains. Denver remained the weakest market, down 48.4 percent from its 2019 baseline and 1.4 percent year-over-year, with downtown vacancy still near record highs. Miami held its position as the national leader in overall recovery, sitting just 11.0 percent below its pre-pandemic baseline on a per-working-day basis.
The New York City Rent Guidelines Board voted 7-1 to freeze rents on all rent-stabilized apartments at 0% for both one- and two-year leases, the first such action in the city's history, following Mayor Zohran Mamdani's appointment of six of the board's nine members. The board's own published data had recommended increases of 3.4% to 4.5% for one-year leases and 4.8% to 8.5% for two-year leases based on operating cost indices, and a landlord representative on the board resigned the morning of the vote citing predetermination. Net operating income for rent-stabilized building owners rose 6.2% in 2024, though current stabilized returns of roughly 6% fall below prevailing borrowing costs, limiting reinvestment incentives. With approximately 57,000 of the city's 1 million stabilized units sitting vacant as of April 2025, a figure that grew by around 8,000 last year, landlord advocates warn that frozen rents make renovation economics unworkable, keeping units off the market and deepening the supply shortage. Legal challenges are widely expected, and lenders note that capital markets exposure to the segment had already contracted sharply following the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act.
Why US real estate is back in play for Asian investors | Commercial Property Executive, July 1, 2026
Asian institutional investors are showing renewed interest in U.S. private real estate, driven by improving liquidity, repriced assets, and stabilizing fundamentals after several years of limited cross-border activity. Investors from Tokyo, Seoul, and Singapore cite U.S. market depth, transparency, and rule-of-law as persistent draws, though higher hedging costs and a strong dollar have raised return thresholds, pushing demand toward core-plus and value-add strategies rather than core. Past losses on direct urban office exposure have made allocators more selective, with growing emphasis on niche property types within retail, industrial, and rental housing, and a preference for partnerships with U.S.-based managers to execute targeted strategies. Transaction volume is expected to improve modestly in 2026 over 2025, with more formal partnerships between Asian capital and U.S. managers expected to form through 2026 and into 2027 as the next cycle gets underway.
NAIOP rebrands as commercial real estate development association | HousingWire, July 1, 2026
NAIOP, the commercial real estate trade group founded in 1967, rebranded as the Commercial Real Estate Development Association (CREDA) on July 1. The Herndon, Virginia-based organization, which represents more than 21,000 members across 55 chapters in North America, said the new name better reflects its scope to policymakers and the public, as its membership spans multifamily, office, retail, industrial, mixed-use, and data center development. The rebrand followed a multiyear process that included member surveys, focus groups, and strategic planning. Its advocacy, research, education, and networking mission remains unchanged.
INSIGHTS Spotlight
Catch the latest research and insights from Altus
Insight | How property vintage shapes pricing across CRE’s core sectors
Curious about the age dynamics in US commercial real estate?
We tracked transaction-level data from Reonomy through Q1 2026 and found that older properties in some core sectors are commanding significant price premiums. Older multifamily and industrial buildings are showing pricing dominance, but the same is not true for office and retail.
Podcast | Fed shifts, ROAD to Housing ACT, and commercial real estate as an inflation hedge
For their 100th episode of the CRE Exchange podcast, Omar Eltorai and Cole Perry cover three topics relevant to the US CRE landscape right now.
First, the "new" Fed era: Kevin Warsh's first meeting at the helm of the US central bank did not bring any change to rates, but sent strong signals that major changes lay ahead (many task forces, less transparency, potentially new preferred measures); markets are pricing rate hikes through end of year.
Second, the Road to Housing Act has cleared both chambers, but a Presidential signing is now in question. The episode breaks down what the institutional SFR ban, the build-to-rent provisions, and the supply-side reforms mean for investors if and when it becomes law.
Third, Omar shares findings from forthcoming research re-examining the effectiveness of CRE as an inflation hedge, and where the data says it does and doesn't hold up.
Important dates
Upcoming data releases and events
Data releases (Times in EST)
Monday, July 6
9:45 AM: US Services PMI (Jun)
10:00 AM: ISM Services PMI (Jun)
11:00 AM: Global Services PMI (Jun)
Wednesday, July 8
10:00 AM: Monthly Wholesale Trade (May)
3:00 PM: Consumer Credit (May)
Thursday, July 9
8:30 AM: Weekly Jobless Claims (Jul 4)
10:00 AM: Existing Home Sales (Jun)
Upcoming Industry Events
July 15: IMN Distressed CRE West Forum (Dana Point, CA)
July 27 – July 30: NCREIF Academy Week at SMU (Dallas, TX)
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.
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