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Good Wednesday morning! Hope you had a good Presidents' Day.
This week: California and the White House agree on something for the first time in years (seriously), rents keep falling but buying still doesn't make sense, AI just erased $12B from the world's largest real estate company. In a single day.
ALSO… we hit 10,000 subscribers this week of this newsletter! We also have our first collab below with SuppCo, which I’m using to help keep track of my own supplements.
Let's get into it.
Quick word count: ~1,979 words… 7 min read
And what do you when it’s time to move on from an old brand (re: shedding the skin of “Indelible Capital Partners”)??? Read at the end to get a sneakpeek at what comes next
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California just told told Wall Street to stop buying houses.
The Big Idea: When Newsom and Trump agree on housing, pay attention.
Governor Newsom and President Trump agree on almost nothing. But both are now targeting the same “villain:” institutional investors buying up single-family homes.
Why it matters: If you've tried to buy a house in the last few years, you already know the feeling. You find a place. You make an offer. You lose to a cash buyer who buys the thing sight unseen. Anyone in Florida especially knows the pain of the last sentence.
And in many cases, that cash buyer is a company. A big one. This week, California moved to change that, surprisingly taking a page out of the Trump White House’s playbook.
What happened:
Governor Newsom announced during his State of the State address that California will crack down on large institutional investors. His words: "When housing is treated primarily as a corporate investment strategy, Californians feel the impact. Prices go up, rents rise, and fewer people have a chance to buy a home."
Meanwhile, Assembly Bill 1240, California Assembly Bill 1240 authored by Assembly Member Alex Lee, would ban any company that already owns more than 1,000 single-family homes from buying additional properties to convert into rentals. The bill has already passed the Assembly. It's now up for a final vote in the State Senate.
Let's put the numbers in context.
Here's the thing most people get wrong about this story. Institutional investors (companies that buy large numbers of homes to rent them out) own fewer than 3% of California's single-family homes. Only about 20,066 homes statewide are owned by firms with portfolios of 1,000 or more. The biggest player, Invitation Homes, owns roughly 11,000 across the state.
Three percent doesn't sound like a lot. But that 3% is concentrated in the neighborhoods where first-time buyers compete.
And when a company with a billion-dollar balance sheet is bidding cash against a family using an FHA loan (a government-backed mortgage designed for buyers with smaller down payments), the family loses. Every time.
Then there's the Altadena factor. After the devastating Los Angeles fires, 27 of 61 burned vacant lots in Altadena were purchased by investors. That's more than 40%. Families lost their homes. Investors bought the land. That image is driving the politics here as much as the data.
The rare alignment. Here's what makes this unusual: Trump and Newsom are pushing the same direction at the same time. Trump has proposed a federal ban on institutional investors purchasing single-family homes. Newsom is moving at the state level. When a Democratic governor and a Republican president agree on a housing policy, something real is happening. The political cover exists on both sides.
What this means:
If you're trying to buy a home: Less institutional competition in your price range. That's a meaningful shift. It won't fix affordability overnight. But removing the biggest cash buyers from the bidding pool changes the math.
If you care about housing policy: This is the first time in years that affordable housing advocacy has bipartisan momentum. Watch whether other states follow California's lead. Texas, Florida, and Georgia have the highest concentrations of institutional SFR ownership.
If you're watching the market: Institutional capital doesn't disappear. It redirects. If single-family homes are off the table, that money flows into multifamily (apartment buildings), build-to-rent communities, and markets in states without bans. The chess game is just starting.
The bottom line: Wall Street buying family homes became the most visible symbol of the affordability crisis. California just called the question. Whether the Senate passes AB 1240 or Newsom's regulatory approach takes hold first, the direction is clear. The era of unlimited institutional SFR acquisition is ending. What replaces it will define the next chapter of American housing.
Join our “Fundamentals of Claude for Business” Event, later this month!
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Fundamentals of Claude for Business, happening Feb 25 and Feb 26.
Signal vs. Noise.
SIGNAL: AI Just Erased $12B From the World's Largest Real Estate Company
CBRE (the world's largest commercial real estate brokerage) fell 26% in two days. JLL dropped 14%. Cushman & Wakefield, 13%. It was the sharpest CRE stock sell-off since 2008.
Here's the twist: CBRE just reported quarterly profit of $818MM. Up 15% year over year. Business is good. The stocks didn't fall because of bad earnings. They fell because investors believe AI will replace the high-fee, labor-intensive brokerage model.
This is real. AI is already automating property analysis, lease abstraction (pulling key terms out of lease documents), and market research. Tasks that used to require teams of analysts. The "AI scare trade" hit CRE harder than any sector except software.
What to watch: Companies that embed AI into their operations will survive. Companies that sell services AI can replicate won't. This is the execution phase. Not the hype phase.
COULD GO EITHER WAY: Gen Z is choosing the Stock Market over Homeownership
The Wall Street Journal reported this month that Gen Z is opening brokerage accounts at historic rates and actively deprioritizing buying a home. At 6%+ mortgage rates, the math often favors renting and investing the difference in the stock market.
I get it. If you're 24 and renting is cheaper than owning in your city, putting the savings into an index fund is rational. But homeownership has historically been the single largest wealth-building tool for American families. Especially Black and Latino families. If an entire generation opts out, the long-term consequences for wealth inequality are significant. This one's worth watching.
The Numbers: 32 months.
That's how long U.S. rents have been falling. Down 1.4% year over year. The 32nd consecutive month of decline.
Here's the stat that should be on every renter's radar: it is now cheaper to rent than to carry a mortgage in all 50 of the largest U.S. metros. All 50. Not some. Not most. Every single one.
This is the result of a historic apartment construction boom. Between 2021 and 2024, developers built a record number of new units. Those apartments are all hitting the market at once, pushing rents down and giving tenants leverage they haven't had since before the pandemic.
But the buying side isn't moving at the same speed. NAR's Housing Affordability Index (which measures whether a family earning the median income can qualify for a median-priced home) hit 116.5 in January. That's the highest since March 2022. Progress. But still well below the long-term average of 130. And builder confidence sits at 36 on a scale where 50 means neutral. Builders don't see conditions improving.
What this means if you're deciding between renting and buying right now: The rental market is in your favor. If your rent is lower than what a mortgage payment would be on the same home, renting and saving the difference is a legitimate financial strategy. This isn't a failure. It's math.
The frozen purchase market and the soft rental market are two sides of the same coin. Both are real. Both matter. Understand which side you're on.
Sources: Apartment List | NAR Housing Affordability Index (January 2026) | NAHB Housing Market Index (February 2026)
Built in Public.
I need to tell you something. This is the final week of Indelible Capital Partners (IndeliCap).
No, we’re not going out of business! In the last three years, we’ve grown into a four person team. We’ve done some decent work in fractional CIO, consulting and multifamily acquisitions.
But the brand. The identity I built the firm under. Yeah, I'm letting it go.
Here's why: I outgrew it. IndeliCap served a purpose when I started. To be an equity capital partner to other diverse and emerging real estate investors, owner operators, making an “indelible impact” on this world.
However, I learned pretty early on that I had no interest in being a third-party “capital partner" to other shops. I want to build and buy affordable housing myself! Also… “indelible” turned out to spell, hard to pronounce, and makes you think of a 1990s era NASA space shuttle mission (e.g. Discovery, Endeavour, Atlantis, etc.).
But the firm I'm building now. The technology. The housing. The vision for what comes next. Something that actually has my name in it. None of it fits inside that old IndeliCap name anymore.
I've been feeling this for a while. The kind of feeling where you keep wearing a suit that doesn't fit because you paid for it. So I stopped wearing it.
Next week I'm announcing something new. A new name. A new brand. The full vision for what this firm is becoming. Not just a rebrand for the sake of it. A complete realignment of who we are with what we're actually doing. Building tomorrow’s housing today with AI and technology front and center.
When’s the launch of the new brand? Check me out next Monday on LinkedIn to find out. But I will tell you this: for the first time, the name sounds like what we do. It feels like what we're building. And it's built to last.
If you want to be there when it drops, follow me on LinkedIn. Monday morning. You'll be the first to know.
And if you've ever gone through a rebrand yourself. The fear of it. The relief of it. Hit reply. I want to hear your story.
Indelible Impact.
The economist who fought redlining with data.
Celebrating Black History Month by highlighting Black pioneers who shaped housing, tech and affordability.
In 1921, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander became the first Black American woman to earn a PhD in economics. She earned it from the University of Pennsylvania. She was 23 years old.
Why it matters: Alexander didn't just study economics. She used it as a weapon. She became a lawyer and joined President Truman's Committee on Civil Rights, where she built the economic case against redlining (the practice of denying mortgages and services to people based on the racial makeup of their neighborhood). While others argued the moral case, Alexander argued the math. Discrimination wasn't just wrong. It was economically destructive.
The bottom line: A century later, the racial homeownership gap is still 30 percentage points wide. Alexander proved that housing equity is an economic issue, not just a social one. The data she championed is the foundation of every fair lending law we have today. She didn't wait for permission. She built the argument.
Learn more: University of Pennsylvania Archives | Wikipedia
Final Thought.
California is going after Wall Street landlords. Rents have fallen for 32 straight months. AI just wiped billions off the biggest names in commercial real estate. I'm building a new brand for the future ahead.
Not a boring week.
Follow me on LinkedIn if you want to catch Monday's announcement for the new company brand. And reply to this email with what you're seeing in your market. I read everything.
Until next week,
-Evan