Guide
The digest used the same handful of measures every week. This page sets out what each one counts, in plain terms.
- Typical rent
The mid-point asking rent across a market's active listings in a given month. It moves with what is being advertised, so it can shift when the mix of available homes changes even if no existing lease changes.
- Landlord concession
A benefit offered in place of a lower advertised rent: a free month, waived parking, or a covered fee. The share of listings carrying one is read as a softness signal, because the headline rent stays put while the effective rent falls.
- Capitalisation rate
Annual net operating income divided by price, written as a percentage. It expresses the income yield implied by a price, which is why the same building carries a different rate in a different market.
- Opportunity zone
A designated census tract in which reinvested capital gains received deferred federal tax treatment. Coverage of these tracts usually tracks how much capital was placed rather than what was built.
- Debt maturity
The date a commercial mortgage balance falls due and must be repaid or refinanced. When many loans mature in the same period the cluster is described as a maturity wall.
- Housing starts
The count of privately owned residential units on which construction began in a month, normally published as a seasonally adjusted annual rate, which is why a monthly figure reads in the hundreds of thousands.
None of this is guidance on a purchase, a sale or a loan; it is a reading key for the figures the editions quote.