This brief examines the landscape of multifamily housing development across 10 US cities from 2019 to 2023, focusing on who is building or rehabilitating large multifamily projects. It addresses the critical issue of housing supply by analyzing the roles of different types of developers, distinguished by profit status, geographic footprint, owner race/ethnicity and gender, number of units produced or rehabilitated, and the estimated value of those units.

Why This Matters

This study reveals opportunities to expand who develops multifamily housing. Policymakers, housing advocates, and developers can use these insights to design policies that support more developer participation and help address the housing supply crisis.

What We Found

• Multifamily housing development is dominated by for-profit firms (89 percent), which produce 94 percent of units.
• Nearly half of developers are local, with Boston having the most and Phoenix the fewest developers with a local footprint.
• Latino and Black developers are significantly underrepresented compared with their population shares, especially in Dallas, Nashville, and San Antonio.
• Women lead only 13 percent of development entities, mostly in nonprofits.

To improve housing affordability, policies should support more developer participation by addressing barriers that disproportionately affect small or emerging developers, particularly in for-profit sectors, through targeted funding and regulatory reforms.

How We Did It

We analyzed new construction and substantial rehabilitation projects of 10 or more units in 10 US cities from 2019 to 2023, using building permit and CoStar data. We classified 1,395 development entities by profit status, geographic footprint, race, ethnicity, and gender based on public records and project portfolios. We weighted cross-city comparisons by the number of active developers in each city.