It’s December 2025, and the multifamily market feels like it’s standing on the edge of a cliff. Yardi Matrix is projecting that more than $525 billion in multifamily loans will mature between now and 2029, covering over 58,000 properties across the country [1]. That’s almost half of all apartment debt outstanding.
To me, that number isn’t just big — it’s transformational. For some owners, it’s a crisis they can’t refinance their way out of. For disciplined investors, it’s the buying window we’ve been waiting on for years.
How We Got Here
The multifamily market of 2021 was unlike anything in recent memory. Debt was cheap, capital was abundant, and owners were underwriting aggressively to make deals pencil. Interest rates hovered around 3–4%, and many pro formas assumed that the explosive rent growth of that year would simply continue.
And it’s easy to see why optimism ran high. In 2021, Yardi Matrix recorded 13.5% national rent growth, the fastest on record [4]. Apartment List measured it even higher, at 17.6% [5]. Even in 2022, growth came in strong at 6.4% nationally, well above historical averages [6].
But rent spikes of that magnitude are rarely sustainable. They attract new development, push tenants to affordability limits, and eventually cool into concessions and higher vacancy. By 2024, national vacancy rates had risen to roughly 7–8%, a sharp turn from the sub-5% levels seen in 2021 [7]. Pair that with higher interest rates and tighter lender requirements, and it became clear that many of the deals written during the boom years were going to struggle when their loans matured.
The Wall of Maturities
That struggle is now materializing. According to Yardi Matrix, $61.8 billion in multifamily loans came due in 2024, $84.3 billion will mature in 2025, and maturities peak at $107.3 billion in 2028 [1]. The Mortgage Bankers Association adds that 14% of all multifamily mortgages mature in 2025 alone [2].
And the pressure isn’t evenly distributed. Markets with the largest pipelines include Atlanta ($34.9B), Dallas ($26.6B), and Denver ($22.9B) [3]. Each of these metros is also delivering significant new supply, meaning landlords will be competing harder for tenants at the same time they’re trying to refinance. That’s a dangerous combination.
Nationally, Freddie Mac estimates that 42% of all CRE maturities in 2024–25 are multifamily loans [7]. In other words, this isn’t a side story — multifamily is ground zero for refinancing risk in today’s real estate market.
Who Gets Hurt — and Who Benefits
Whenever I talk to investors about this, I break it down simply: there are going to be winners and losers.
Who gets hurt? The easy answer is anyone who bought at the peak. If you closed in 2021 or 2022, chances are your basis is just too high for today’s debt markets. Bridge borrowers are in the same boat — a two- or three-year loan that looked fine at 3.5% interest now looks impossible at 6.5%. And then you’ve got weaker sponsors, the ones who don’t have the equity relationships or reserves to shore up their balance sheets. Add in oversupplied submarkets — think downtown Houston or Atlanta — and you’ve got a recipe for forced sales.
Who benefits? The ones who kept their powder dry. Disciplined buyers finally have the leverage after chasing overheated deals for years. Private credit funds are already stepping into the void as banks pull back [9]. Preferred equity providers are finding a hungry market for recapitalizations [8]. And local operators — the ones who actually know their tenants, their comps, and their submarkets — are going to pick up assets at prices outsiders can’t touch.
That’s the cycle. Distress doesn’t just destroy value, it transfers it.
The Lesson From 2021–22
Here’s the biggest takeaway from the last cycle: rent spikes are warnings, not baselines.
If you treated 2021’s record rent growth as the new normal, you set yourself up for disaster. Your NOI projections were inflated, your debt sizing was too aggressive, and your exit assumptions were out of whack. Now you’re the one trying to refinance a loan you can’t service.
The investors who kept their models conservative — realistic vacancy, market-level rent growth, tight expense control — they’re not the ones in trouble today. They’re the ones with cash ready to buy when the maturities start hitting.
The Bottom Line
As of today, September 5, 2025, the multifamily industry is staring down more than half a trillion dollars in debt maturities. Not every owner is going to survive it. We’ll see distress, discounted sales, recapitalizations, and plenty of pain.
But we’ll also see opportunity — the kind you only get once or twice a decade. For those of us willing to underwrite with discipline and patience, this is the window.
Half a trillion in maturities doesn’t just mean risk. It means turnover. And turnover is where the best deals are made.
Written by Elias Ronstadt
Sources
[1] Yardi Matrix – $525B in Multifamily Loans Will Mature Through 2029 (Mar 2024): Link
[2] Mortgage Bankers Association – 20% of Multifamily Mortgages Mature in 2025 (Feb 2025): Link
[3] Multifamily Dive – Cities With Largest Volume of Loan Maturities (Mar 2024): Link[4] Yardi Matrix – Multifamily Rents Soared in 2021 (Jan 2022): Link
[5] Apartment List – National Rent Report Dec 2021: Link
[6] Yardi Matrix – Multifamily National Report Dec 2022: Link
[7] Freddie Mac – Multifamily Maturity Risk Report (Jan 2024): Link
[8] Trepp via Multifamily Dive – Refinancing Risk & Acquisition Opportunities (Jul 2025): Link
[9] Business Insider – Private Credit Fills Gap as Banks Retreat (Aug 2024): Link