If you’re looking to make smart real estate investments in the Western US in 2026, you’ve landed in the right spot. I’ve sifted through the data and my own insights to pinpoint the cities that are poised for solid growth and steady returns. My top recommendation for a balanced approach to yield and growth is Phoenix, Arizona, due to its booming job market and appeal to new residents. For those focused on equity appreciation, San Jose, California, remains a compelling choice despite its high entry cost, thanks to extreme supply limitations.

Best Western U.S. Cities For Real Estate Investment in 2026

The West in 2026 isn’t a one-size-fits-all market anymore. Gone are the days when every Sun Belt and Mountain West city was a guaranteed home run. Now, we’re seeing distinct opportunities. On one hand, you have bustling cities with strong job growth that are attracting people and businesses looking for a fresh start beyond pandemic-era speculation. On the other, you have the classic coastal tech hubs, where a lack of new homes is pushing rents up and values higher. As someone who’s been following these trends for years, I can tell you that understanding these differences is key to making a winning investment.

The Bright Stars: Broad Expansion Hubs

These are the places that are growing fast, with lots of new jobs and people moving in. They offer a good mix of making money now and seeing your property value go up over time.

• Phoenix, Arizona: This city is really leading the charge in the Mountain West. It’s become a magnet for people leaving California and other pricey West Coast areas. Phoenix is also a big deal in healthcare and tech, which means more jobs and more people needing places to live. PwC even named it one of the top 20 real estate spots for 2026. I think single-family rentals are a great bet here, as well as looking for good deals in retail spaces. It’s a market with real staying power.
• Salt Lake City, Utah: What I love about Salt Lake City is its steady, diverse job market. It’s not just one industry; it’s a mix that keeps people employed and happy. This means consistent demand for homes, especially for first-time buyers and families looking for starter homes and multifamily units. It’s a city that promises long-term stability.
• Las Vegas, Nevada: Don’t just think of Vegas as a tourist town anymore. It’s rapidly becoming a hub for technology, shipping, and other industries. This job growth is pulling in tons of people, and guess what? There aren’t enough places for them to live, which makes for a tight rental market. Investing in suburban multi-unit properties could be a smart move here for good cash flow.
• Denver, Colorado: Denver is a more established market, but that doesn’t mean it’s stopped growing. The city has a wide range of housing types and high local incomes, which keeps demand strong for mid-tier residential properties. It’s also a good spot for corporate rentals if you’re looking for reliable tenants.

The Tight Markets: Supply-Constrained Tech & Coastal Gen-2 Cities

These cities are a bit different. They’re often more expensive to buy into, but the real magic is in how much rents can go up because there just aren’t enough homes being built.

• San Jose, California: If you’re talking about appreciation, San Jose is a big name for 2026, according to Zillow. The reason is simple: it’s incredibly hard to build new homes here because of strict rules. This lack of new supply means existing homes hold their value and tend to go up. My advice? Focus on luxury rentals or apartments that cater to the workforce – the people who keep the tech giants running. This is where you’ll see sharp equity growth.
• Orange County, California: Like Phoenix, Orange County is also getting high marks from PwC. It’s another area where building new homes is tough. This means there’s a real shortage of space. I see good opportunities in industrial real estate, which is in demand from businesses, and in multi-unit apartment complexes. These are premium assets that are likely to hold their value.
• Sacramento, California: Think of Sacramento as the smart, more affordable cousin of the San Francisco Bay Area. Lots of professionals are moving inland from the expensive coastal cities and finding a great lifestyle in Sacramento. This creates strong demand for rentals, and you can often buy properties at a much lower price than in the Bay Area. Investing in suburban single-family homes could be a solid strategy here for steady income.

The Up-and-Comers: Secondary Regional Engines

These cities might not be as famous as the others, but they offer a good combination of affordability and growing potential. They’re great for investors looking for value.

• Boise, Idaho: After a bit of a slowdown, Boise’s real estate market has found its footing again in 2026. It’s become a popular spot for people who work remotely and want a great lifestyle. There’s a lot of building happening with multifamily developments, which means more rental options. It’s a market ripe for emerging value.
• Colorado Springs, Colorado: This city has a strong economic backbone thanks to the aerospace, defense, and military sectors, plus a big university. It’s a more stable and less expensive place to invest than Denver. I think looking at housing for students and defense workers could be a good niche.
• Spokane, Washington: Spokane is rapidly becoming a go-to spot in the Pacific Northwest, especially for people looking for more affordable options than Seattle. Investors are noticing the overflow from the pricier coastal areas. This is a great place to look for emerging multifamily pipelines and capture that growing demand.

My Two Cents: What to Watch Out For

As an investor, I always tell people to be smart and do their homework.

• Avoid the Hype: Steer clear of areas that saw crazy price increases just because of pandemic trends. Some of those markets are now seeing rents go down because so many new apartments were built. Focus on places with real job growth or where it’s just plain hard to build new homes.
• Know the Rules: Real estate laws can change, especially when it comes to renting. Some cities in California, Washington, and Colorado have new rules for landlords and short-term rentals. Make sure you understand these costs and rules before you buy.

The Western US in 2026 offers some fantastic opportunities for real estate investors. By understanding the different types of markets and focusing on cities with strong fundamentals, you can build a successful and profitable portfolio.

The multifamily sector has spent the last several years navigating shifting interest rates, changing migration patterns, elevated operating costs and uneven supply dynamics. In that environment, broad market narratives have often dominated investment conversations — whether around Sun Belt growth, newer vintage product or value-add strategies.

According to CF Capital, however, successful multifamily investing rarely comes from trying to bet market timing or following the same generalized story as others. Instead, the firm believes the best outcomes are driven by disciplined underwriting values and execution, governance and investor transparency.

The Louisville-based multifamily investment firm has a portfolio of 1,500 units across two states (with two more states in focus for immediate growth) and has seen its revenue nearly double over the last two years. While focused on reaching 20,000 units under management in 10 years, the firm remains resolute in sticking to its underwriting standards, willing to go a quarter reviewing over three dozen deals and closing zero rather than agreeing to a single transaction or property they do not believe in.

While many are still recovering from four years of market distress that wiped out undercapitalized and overleveraged owners, CF Capital is positioned for growth, having navigated volatility, broadened investor partnerships and streamlined operations in recent years.

In the following Q&A, CF Capital’s Acquisitions Principal Alex Terauds discusses how the team evaluates opportunities in today’s market, operational issues investors often overlook and where the firm sees opportunity emerging through the second half of 2026.

Q: There has been significant upheaval in the multifamily market and broader economy over the last half decade. How do you balance leveraging short-term cyclical opportunities against long-term underwriting strategy?

A: Understanding the investment cycle, investor sentiment, and capital flows is important. However, identifying apartment communities with long-term advantages is most important— the characteristics that create downside protection and appreciation potential across cycles.

The variables we evaluate remain relatively consistent across cycles — submarket, micro-location, floorplan layout, amenities, unit finishes, effective age, insulation from future competition, community size, and several others. We generate a score based on these inputs, which we use to help determine how aggressively we pursue a property. So, lower-scoring opportunities require meaningfully higher return expectations compared to higher-scoring opportunities. This creates discipline in how we pursue deals and keeps us grounded in our long-term underwriting strategy.

A good example of this discipline is how we handle property effective age across cycles compared to the market. Today we currently see investors assigning too much value to the age of the asset itself without adequately considering other key variables such as future competitive supply and basis. If a property is located in an area where similar or better product can be easily replicated at a cost near the acquisition basis, we see meaningful risk that the long-term return profile is less durable than current pricing implies..

Conversely, when value-add was in vogue at the peak of the cycle, the market assigned almost no weight to the property’s age, while we stayed disciplined in properly accounting for the higher ongoing capital requirements and realistic long-term return expectations.

The key is understanding how the various property characteristics interact and weighting them appropriately regardless of market sentiment. It is not really about going with or against cyclical opportunities but staying disciplined to what remains true across cycles.

Q: What are some of the most common ways multifamily investors misprice risk?

A: One common mistake I see today is rover simplifying distressed deals. Investors love the story of a distressed deal, and it frankly makes raising equity easier.

However, these distressed deals are often priced with a value-add execution. And most often, the pricing can look fair on paper – there is a renovated rent comparable that justifies the price on the surface. . But in practice, many of these projects require repositioning the resident profile of the property, not simply upgrading interiors.

If a community has historically served as a lower-rent option within its submarket, materially increasing rents can create meaningful operational friction during the transition. That becomes especially more difficult at larger properties where you are introducing newly renovated supply to the submarket that needs absorbed. And if the actual floorplan layouts lack key features that the renter requires at the new price point, achieving projected rents becomes even more difficult.

These types of dynamics are often understated or missed in underwriting, but they have a meaningful impact on economic occupancy and rents, which ultimately impacts returns.

Q: If an investor is not actively managing a property, what operational and governance procedures should be evaluated before partnering with a sponsor?

A: Investors should spend significant time understanding how a sponsor makes decisions when circumstances deviate from the original underwriting.

Most business plans look attractive when modeled under stable assumptions. What matters operationally is how a team responds when lease-up slows, renovation pacing changes, expenses rise or market conditions shift unexpectedly.

We believe investors should evaluate whether a sponsor has a clearly defined framework for reviewing asset performance, adjusting strategy and allocating capital throughout the hold period. Transparency around reporting and operational oversight is critical in volatile environments.

It is also important to understand what types of opportunities a sponsor is willing to pass on. In many cases, a disciplined investment process results in eliminating far more deals than it produces. That selectivity can be frustrating in active markets, but it often becomes an advantage during more difficult periods.

Q: What markets have proven to be ripe with the most opportunity over the last year under the criteria your team sets?

A: Columbus and Indianapolis have generated the most activity for us, but only a small number aligned with our criteria strongly enough for us to pursue aggressively. The best deal we saw recently was in Lexington, KY – it was one of the most difficult-to-replicate multifamily properties we evaluated this year, because it sits in the heart of Lexington’s only true walkable lifestyle center. You cannot go to another large apartment community in Lexington and experience the same thing. In larger markets, there are usually multiple walkable lifestyle corridors and more ability to build around them. Along that theme of walkable lifestyle centered communities, we are one of two final contenders for a downtown Indianapolis community at the gateway of Mass Ave – the most desirable walkable urban lifestyle location in the market. Downtown receives a lot less investor attention than the high growth northern suburbs, and we believe the pricing did not fully reflect the quality and durability of this particular location. While there are times that certain markets feel over or underpriced, the best opportunities are usually much more deal-specific and nuanced than a market being hot or cold.

Q: What is your outlook for the multifamily market through the second half of 2026?

A: In the Midwest, the marketed sale pipeline is slower in 2026 compared to 2025 and I believe it will continue at that slower pace through 2026 unless the war in Iran has some resolution. Investor appetite remains very strong for well-located deals that have been built in the last 30 years – with several marketed properties meeting or exceeding pricing guidance even in the face of the volatility. And there are thoughtful sellers that I believe will continue to go to market recognizing that there is a lot of capital pursuing a small amount of quality deals.

However, older deals, especially those that that are in B locations or lower, are struggling to attract investors at seller pricing. Typically, when these deals trade, they are significantly short of pricing guidance and usually the buyer is on an island related to pricing. Pricing discovery is still occurring in this segment. And there is not as much distress in the Midwest forcing sales, so I expect very low volume in this area of the market for the rest of 2026.

With refinancing pressure, elevated interest rates, slower rent growth than planned in many cases, and mounting capital needs, I believe an increasing number of these owners will start to face reality and sell in the coming years. Investors with patient capital and the ability to evaluate deals on a more individualized basis will be rewarded.

Ultimately, every market favors a thoughtful and disciplined approach to acquisition underwriting, with success often determined by knowing which opportunities deserve conviction and which require added caution.

Nuveen has offloaded a five-building apartment complex in Van Nuys to a locally based real estate firm. 

Beverly Hills-based Post Investment Group purchased the 390-unit San Regis apartments at 15454 Sherman Way in Van Nuys for roughly $69 million, or $176,923 per unit, Hoodline reported. The property sale ranks among the priciest multifamily transactions in the San Fernando Valley so far this year and the largest by unit count in Van Nuys since 2015, according to Connect CRE.  

Under Nuveen’s ownership, the company invested nearly $17 million in upgrades to individual units and common areas at the gated community in recent years. Amenities on site include a junior-Olympic pool, three pickleball courts and a modernized fitness center. 

Post Investment Group has made multifamily acquisitions in northern Los Angeles County before. In the San Fernando Valley, Post Investment Group and Walker & Dunlop Investment Partners teamed up in late 2024 to buy the Marquee Apartments, a 236-unit garden-style apartment complex at 12300 Sherman Way in North Hollywood, for $44 million. Last spring, Post purchased the Chaparral Apartments in Palmdale for $71 million, The Real Deal reported at the time. That 296-unit complex at 38441 Fifth Street West traded for just under $240,000 per unit and ended up being the largest multifamily deal in Palmdale last year, per TRD Data. 

Post Investment Group’s website notes its efforts in multifamily repositioning and workforce and affordable housing, suggesting it will likely operate and maintain the property rather than pursue redevelopment, according to Hoodline. 

Nuveen’s disposition marks the latest multifamily sale in the Los Angeles area. Last fall, Nuveen sold the 244-unit Stella apartment property at 13488 Maxella Avenue in Marina del Rey to Carmel Partners for $141 million. That marked the priciest multifamily sale in the seaside enclave in more than a decade, though it was still 15 percent lower than the $167.3 million that Nuveen paid for Stella in 2013. 

— Chris Malone Méndez

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AV Management, a private New York based investment firm, completed the acquisition of 73-75 Sullivan St. in SoHo from a longtime SoHo developer for $43,333,000. Cushman & Wakefield’s Dylan Walsh and Nico Nicolaou represented the seller. Citizens Private Bank provided $21.6 million in competitive acquisition financing under significant time constraints.

73-75 Sullivan St. was completed in 2016 as a ground-up construction project. It features expansive layouts, modern construction vintage and long-term commercial tenancy, according to AV Management.

“This special situation transaction represents the robust opportunity set to purchase investment-grade assets at historically high yields by taking advantage of early-cycle market dynamics,” said AV Principal Ahcene Ouldsaada. “73-75 Sullivan St. capitalizes on the dislocation caused by the 2022’s historically unprecedented hike in domestic base rates. The asset was acquired at an opportunistic basis and will be held long-term as a permanent income vehicle with an option for attractive liquidity as markets normalize.”

About a month in as CEO, Laura Clark, in a sit down with The Real Deal at Rexford Industrial’s Brentwood office, appeared to confirm a theory — that Elliott Investment Management was behind her entry to the corner office. She said the succession plan had already been in place but “those discussions impact timing.” 

When an activist investor takes a stake in a company, it typically means changes are coming and probably sends a chill down the spines of CEOs — who, more than ever before, are the targets of activist campaigns.

In the case of the vanilla industrial REIT, the campaign began with a rumor: there was talk that Paul Singer’s Elliott Investment Management had quietly become one of Rexford Industrial’s largest shareholders. The Los Angeles company later mentioned it had conversations with the hedge fund on an earnings call when prodded by analysts. But the real news came late last year when Rexford announced a changed capital allocation strategy that involved selling real estate and buying back shares — and a CEO shakeup.

The REIT’s co-CEOs were out and Clark was in. She won.

Clark replaced Michael Frankel and Howard Schwimmer, who founded the multibillion-dollar REIT with former chair Richard Ziman. Her corner office era began April 1 after six years at the company. Frankel and Schwimmer dropped, or lost, their C-suite gigs and soon their board seats.

Chair Tyler Rose said the succession plan was in the making for years, but there was speculation that Elliott was the reason.

Now the activist investor’s ownership shares are unclear, according to Clark. The hedge fund may not own shares at all anymore, she mentioned last week. Elliott called itself one of Rexford’s largest investors in the dual November announcements. 

Elliott “forms and establishes from time to time certain special purpose vehicles, operating companies, joint ventures or similar arrangements for investing in and developing opportunities,” it says. That means it sells, buys and holds shares via brokerage accounts and other entities, which makes it difficult to pin down the activist investor’s positions. Plus, the SEC only requires reporting for firms with more than a 5 percent stake in a company. Thus, if Elliott spreads its shares across various entities, it’s able to maintain a low profile.

“We’re not engaged in a regular dialogue with them,” Clark said during her talk with TRD.

Clark claims the conversations Rexford has had with Elliott are that of a typical shareholder — but Elliott is not your typical shareholder. 

“The discussions that we had with them last year were really constructive, friendly and supportive — and I think that they’d agree with us as well, that the outcome that we achieved through those discussions is positioning Rexford to create more shareholder value,” she said. 

When asked if Rexford had spoken to Elliott in 2026, Clark said yes but didn’t elaborate further. Elliott declined to comment.

Whether Elliott is in or out, the firm cleaned house. Operational efficiency, refocused capital allocation and enhanced governance and oversight were the goals. It’s early but the changes in the Clark reign reflect that, including a stock rebound. 

Around the time rumors began swirling in August around Elliott’s involvement with Rexford, the REIT saw its stock increase, maintaining gains for several months before the tide turned. Leading up to Clark’s April 1 start date as CEO, Rexford’s stock had been trending downward for months, following the release of its fourth quarter earnings report which revealed a net loss of about $69 million for the period. Between the Feb. 4 earnings release and March 31, shares lost more than 20 percent of their value. When Clark took the helm, values began to trend back up before reaching a plateau over the last two months, hovering between $35 and $37.

Rexford’s buy-happy days aren’t over, but are definitely on a break. Clark, who is making the media rounds, said there were no acquisitions in the pipeline but left the door open. 

“Acquisitions will be a part of our strategy,” she said. It’s not a compelling move now while Southern California industrial is in a correction cycle, she explained, but that won’t last forever.

Rexford will always be an industrial only REIT, she said, and $400 million to $500 million in sell-offs is still the goal for the year. The focus has been selling development sites and properties that’ll eat into its cash flow and selling to owner-users, Clark said. 

Executive compensation is another reflection of change. Clark’s comp will be less than her predecessors and more connected to shareholder returns, which she said she pushed for. 

“We should be arm-and-arm, shoulder-to-shoulder with our investors. If our investors are performing well and we’re driving outsized returns for them, then we as a management team should be compensated and aligned with them,” Clark said “And if we’re not, then we shouldn’t be.” 

Clark is only one of a few female CEOs in Los Angeles’ commercial real estate world. Plus, she succeeded co-CEOs who were founders. That doesn’t happen often. She sees it as an exciting opportunity but knows the pressure that comes with it. 

“I feel the weight of it,” she said. “There’s not a lot of women that sit in the role, so you feel the weight of being in this role as a woman for all women.”

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The owners of a real estate investment company in Oregon have been sentenced to federal prison after pleading guilty to their roles in a $17 million fraud scheme. 

At a hearing last week at the federal courthouse in Portland, Robert Christensen was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison, and his business partner Anthony Matic was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison. 

Prosecutors say they blew investor and lender cash on casino trips and massages—and left many victims stripped of their life savings. In total, prosecutors say the duo defrauded individual investors out of more than $10 million and commercial lenders out of more than $7 million.

Christensen had previously been a residential loan officer and loan originator for national mortgage companies before starting the investment company, and Matic was a licensed real estate agent.

According to court documents, from January 2019 through June 2023, Christensen and Matic had a business plan to buy Midwest real estate and raised cash for the project from small investors.

The idea was to “entice friends, business contacts, and other people” to invest cash to buy properties in the Great Lakes region and repay them with income or equity from the properties, prosecutors wrote in court filings.

They advised investors that the properties would be rented to produce income and later refinanced to monetize any appreciation in value attributable to improvements.

Christensen and Matic offered and sold these people unregistered promissory notes with above-market interest rates of 8% to 15%, and further promised to return the money, with the interest and an additional lump sum payout, within as little as 30 to 90 days.

Putting pressure on victims

In a sentencing memorandum, federal prosecutor Scott E. Bradford laid out the specifics of the scheme, which Christensen and Matic in their plea agreements admitted to taking part in.

According to Bradford, Christensen and Matic induced victims to invest larger sums of money by pressuring them to obtain home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) secured by their primary residences or to prematurely liquidate retirement accounts.

To accomplish this, they allegedly made material misrepresentations and misleading half-truths regarding the expected returns on the promissory notes, including representations that such returns would exceed the interest obligations on any HELOCs or the performance of the victims’ existing retirement accounts.

Bradford says that Christensen and Matic failed to disclose that they lacked the ability to repay investors within the promised time frames necessary for repayment of HELOC obligations or reinvestment of retirement savings, due to the company’s dire financial condition and lack of liquidity.

The prosecutor indicates that they pressured certain investors to reinvest their funds rather than withdraw them. In some instances, to defer repayment obligations for extended periods, the defendants induced investors to roll their funds into a purported “long-term equity fund,” supported by misleading statements and material half-truths.

Bradford said that the pair failed to disclose that the fund was significantly underwater and lacked any realistic prospect of repaying investors.

Inside the Ponzi scheme

Bradford’s filing further says that Christensen and Matic diverted substantial portions of investor proceeds from the promissory notes to themselves for personal expenses—including to pay for at least one vacation, gifts, casino trips, massages, a whiskey club membership, and cryotherapy.

The prosecutor says the duo used new investor funds to repay earlier investors and continue the scheme in a Ponzi-like manner.

When investor contributions declined, they obtained millions of dollars in commercial loans by submitting applications containing materially false financial information, according to the filing.

Sentencing details

Court records show that Christensen and Matic each pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud arising from their roles in the investment scheme. Christensen also pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office argued that Matic should receive credit for his immediate acceptance of responsibility, which contributed to his lesser sentence.

Matic must surrender on June 11 to start his sentence, and Christensen must surrender on June 25 to start his.

In a separate 2023 SEC civil case, Christensen and Matic were ordered to pay $5,374,482, plus separate civil penalties of $200,000 each.

The civil case operated independently of the related criminal prosecutions that resulted in the prison sentences for Christensen and Matic.

Victim impact statements

Many of Christensen and Matic’s victims—identified only by their initials in court documents—provided impact statements, which showed the real-life consequences of their actions.

Victims M.M. and S.M., who lost $300,000 in the scheme, said they will “never be able to retire” and that they “experienced intense feelings of betrayal from someone who acted as if they were [their] friend.”

Victims C.S. and R.S. said because of Christensen, they live in fear of their financial future every day, and now have a mortgage that is double what it was. This has destroyed any dreams of travel in retirement.

Victims B.B. and S.B. said Christensen convinced them to take out a HELOC to invest with him, and now they have “countless sleepless nights, worrying about losing [their] home and [their] financial security.”

Victim D.P. said that after her husband died and she was in mourning, Christensen—who was a friend—called her up to “help” her by investing $50,000 so that he could “double her money.” She was never paid back and with her “life savings stripped” on top of the loss of her husband, she has “countless sleepless nights these past years, depression, and anxiety.”

Both men express remorse

When asked if there was anything Christensen would like to say to his victims, Christensen’s attorney Scott L. Mullins told Realtor.com®, “Bob made a statement in court. He stands by that.” 

According to Oregon Live, Christensen said at his sentencing: “I am mortified that my actions have hurt others. I severely struggle every day.”

He said he believed in his business at the start but then “stayed in too long hoping I could fix what was failing.”

Mullins told the judge that Christensen’s actions have ruined his own family, and that his wife and two teenage children didn’t come to court to support him.

Meanwhile, Matic told the judge that he never wanted to hurt anyone.

“I went into this with my heart,” he said. “I’m loyal, trustworthy. I did not verify enough. I did not want to hurt anybody, especially my close friends. I saw the red flags. I didn’t act. I don’t know why. I should’ve. … I didn’t want to fail. I should have told the people who were close to me, stop investing. I didn’t.”

Realtor.com reached out to Matic’s attorney and did not hear back.