Colorado-Real-Estate-Journal_508456

A nother active year in the Mile High City multifam- ily market! As we enter 2026 and prepare for a new investment cycle, it would be of interest to review not only metro Denver’s 2025 multifam- ily investment activity, but also its historical multifamily investment activity over the past decade com- pared to its peer markets. Over the past decade, out of the largest 132 multifamily metros in the United States, metro Denver ranked as the 10th most active market for multifamily investment activity, with a total of around $57 billion in multifamily transaction volume. This investment activity provides a clear statement from institutional and private investors alike, who continue to deploy capi- tal into our market via diverse ave- nues including portfolio offerings, single asset offerings, asset recapi- talizations and selective develop- ment investment opportunities. Honing in on 2025’s institutional multifamily trans- action volume (sales transactions greater than $50 million) within metro Denver, we see a continued dominance of institutional capi- tal in the trans- action arena. In 2025, the metro Denver market traded around $2.2 billion in institutional multifam- ily within around 25 arm’s-length transactions. Of those transactions, the composition of investment type, equity source and financing is worth further discussion. A major theme seen throughout the United States is investment capital’s pref- erence for suburban versus urban investments, and the metro Denver landscape was no different in 2025; of the institutional transactions that closed in the market within 2025, around 85% were suburban in nature, while just about 15% occurred in the urban environment. The question of whether urban investment activity will return does not seem to be the appropriate question, but rather when? Time and continued absorption will drive the return of the urban segment of the market. In 2025, discretion- ary capital was very active in the market, comprising of about 70% of metro Denver’s institutional mul- tifamily transaction activity, while the remaining about 30% of transac- tions were capitalized through joint ventures, syndications and alter- native structures. Lastly, regarding acquisition financing, it is worth noting that over 70% of metro Denver’s institutional multifamily transaction activity was facilitated through the capital markets via newly originated agency loans (Fan- nie Mae and Freddie Mac), with the remaining 30% or so of transactions comprised of the following capi- tal market executions: debt funds (about 8%), existing loan assump- tions (about 8%), life companies (about 4%), national/regional banks (about 4%) and all-cash (about 4%). A significant contributor to the past and future success of the metro Denver multifamily market is the robust for-sale housing mar- ket, which has two major drivers at play: 1) the widespread trend of an increasing age of first-time home- buyers, coupled with a decreasing ratio of first-time homebuyers; and 2) steady, yet expensive, for-sale housing market fundamentals. In 2010, the median age nationally of first-time home buyers was about 30 years of age, while today that number has expanded to about 40 INSIDE The American dream no longer aligns with lifestyle priorities American dream Optimism and hope guide our capacity to face, meet and overcome challenges Affordable housing PAGES 26-28 Colorado is no longer the migration magnet it was a decade ago Migration slowdown PAGE 10 February 2026 PAGE 6 Please see Possick, Page 24 Alex Possick Senior director, JLL Capital Markets 2025 in review: Denver institutional MF market