Apartment Development & Affordable Housing Conference 2025: Key Highlights, Insights & What Comes Next

This year’s Apartment Development & Affordable Housing Conference brought together leaders, emerging voices, and frontline practitioners for a day of timely insights and practical strategies. Across many standout sessions, attendees gained a deeper understanding of where the industry is heading—and what it will take to move projects forward in today’s challenging environment.

Below are the core themes and takeaways from the conference.

Apartment Marketplace Pulse – a view from the street, not the c-suite

This conversation brought together practitioners who work closest to the ground—those who interact with residents, leasing teams, service managers, and day-to-day operations.

Key Takeaways:

  • The “street view” paints a different picture than macro-level reports. Renters’ concerns revolve around stability, quality, and lifestyle—not just pricing.

  • Leasing today requires empathy and adaptability. Teams reported higher interest in shorter terms, flexibility, and transparency around fees and policies.

  • Operational excellence is becoming a competitive differentiator. Buildings that perform well operationally lease faster, retain longer, and withstand market pressures better.

  • Community-building is a growing expectation. Residents want connection, amenities with purpose, and management that feels human.

This session underscored that frontline insights must help guide the decisions made in boardrooms.

Private Equity & Joint Ventures

This session unpacked the evolving landscape of private equity, joint ventures, and capital partnerships—an area undergoing major transformation as interest rates, construction costs, and lender expectations continue to shift.

Key Takeaways:

  • Partnership structures are becoming more creative, flexible, and performance-aligned. Developers are looking beyond traditional models to unlock capital and share risk intelligently.

  • Institutional capital is still active—but far more selective. Sponsors with strong track records, transparent governance, and conservative underwriting are rising to the top.

  • Co-development is gaining momentum, especially for groups looking to maintain control while accessing deeper capital pools.

  • Successful JVs rely on clarity up front: roles, responsibilities, reporting, exit strategies, and waterfall structures must be established early to avoid friction later.

This session reinforced a central message: in today’s environment, the right partnerships matter more than ever.

It was a practical, highly engaging walk-through that many attendees said was one of the most actionable portions of the conference.

Apartment Pro Forma & Financing

Our morning case study broke down an actual development scenario, exploring feasibility, capital stack assumptions, and recalibrated expectations in today’s economic environment.

Key Takeaways:

  • Rising costs demand smarter design and value engineering—without compromising long-term asset quality.

  • Proformas now require more sensitivity testing. Developers must model multiple rent outcomes, interest rate paths, and construction timelines.

  • MLI Select, ACLP, and creative financing remain powerful tools, but each comes with unique constraints that must be evaluated early.

  • The winning formula is discipline + creativity. The developer in the case study succeeded not by cutting corners, but by rethinking the fundamentals.

It was a practical, highly engaging walk-through that many attendees said was one of the most actionable portions of the conference.

A Successful Event—And a Big Thank You

We are incredibly grateful for the enthusiastic participation, thoughtful discussions, and overwhelmingly positive feedback from this year’s attendees.
Your engagement confirms what we’ve believed for years: this event fills a critical need in the industry.

The conversations sparked yesterday will continue to influence how developers, owners, lenders, and policymakers approach apartment development and affordability challenges across the country.

We’re excited to build on this momentum—and we’re already looking forward to seeing you again next year.

📅 Save the date: December 1, 2026

Thank you once again for being part of this year’s conference.
We’ll see you next year—with even more insights, strategies, and industry-shaping conversations.