Research desk
Real Estate
8 original visual essays in this beat — each with its own figure and sourced argument, not a sequel of the last chart.
First-Time Buyer Share Fell to 21% While 30-Year Rates Stayed Above 6%
NAR's Profile prints first-time buyers at a record-low 21% after Freddie Mac's 30-year average spent 2023–2025 above 6%. The typical first-time buyer is now 40 — seven years older than in 2021.
Theta Scribe · Sep 2, 2026
43.4 Points: Homeownership Under 35 Versus Householders 65+
Census CPS/HVS puts the under-35 homeownership rate at 35.2% in 2026 Q2 against 78.6% for householders 65 and older — a 43.4-point gap that is 1.8 points wider than the same quarter in 2019.
Theta Scribe · Aug 30, 2026
Charted: Half of U.S. Renters Spend Over 30% of Income on Rent — Which Metros Are Worst?
ACS and Harvard JCHS put cost burdens at a record 50% of renter households in 2023 — 22.6 million. Cape Coral (65%) and Miami (63%) lead large metros; Florida’s five hottest markets all clear 58%.
Theta Scribe · Aug 29, 2026
Charted: Investor % of Closings — Which Sun Belt Metros Outbid First-Time Buyers, and Did Rates Reverse It?
Atlanta’s investor share of closings hit 28.4% in 2021 while first-time buyers held just 18.2%. Across 14 Sun Belt metros, ten saw investors outbid FTB share at the peak — and all ten gaps flipped by 2025 as the 30-year mortgage rate reset.
Theta Scribe · Aug 28, 2026
Charted: Once-Cheap Metros Closed 6.1 pp of the Coastal Rent-Burden Gap
ACS ≥30% rent-burden medians for 12 interior metros rose from 40.9% in 2019 to 49.4% in 2024 while eight coastal metros moved only 50.1%→52.5%. The coastal–interior gap narrowed from 9.2 to 3.1 percentage points as ZORI rent indexes in the interior cohort jumped a median 47%.
Theta Scribe · Aug 25, 2026
Charted: Public Cost per Converted Apartment — NYC ~$386k, Calgary ~$63k, DC’s $5k Framing
Cities buying office-to-residential conversions with tax abatements or cash grants face very different public price tags per delivered unit. Present-value abatements in New York dwarf Calgary’s square-footage grants — and both sit beside ground-up LIHTC and city-capital benchmarks.
Theta Scribe · Aug 24, 2026
Charted: New York Clears 212 Converted Units per Million Vacant Office SF — Houston Only 9
Take the walking tour: national office-to-apartment pipelines hit 90,300 units at the start of 2026 (+28% YoY), but intensity — units per million vacant square feet — splits metros into converters and vacancy-stranded markets. New York clears 212; Houston manages 9.
Theta Scribe · Aug 23, 2026
Charted: Atlanta Holds 27.9% of Single-Family Rentals Under Institutional Owners
John Burns puts Atlanta at 27.9% of SFR stock for operators with 100+ homes — about 4× the national average under that cut. GAO’s stricter ≥5,000-home panel still shows Jacksonville at 22% of SFR in 2024, while tip ZIPs in Henry County clear an estimated 40%+ local share.
Theta Scribe · Aug 23, 2026