The quick read: The Census Bureau and HUD's October 20, 2026 release puts September starts in buildings with five or more units at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 349,000, down 25.9% (±21.5%) from September 2025, a statistically significant drop. In the same category, permits rose to a 503,000 annual rate, and units authorized but not started reached 123,000 at the end of September, up 13.9% (±13.1%) from a year earlier. That backlog sits between the permit and the groundbreaking, so for a developer holding a permit the report raises a capital question: can the construction loan and the equity close at today's budget? The release reports counts, not reasons, and every September figure in it is preliminary.
What did the September 2026 Census report say about buildings with five or more units?
The September 2026 New Residential Construction release, published by the Census Bureau and HUD on October 20, 2026, shows five-plus-unit starts down a statistically significant 25.9% from a year earlier, while permits rose and the permitted-but-not-started backlog grew a significant 13.9% year over year. Year-over-year September changes in under construction and completions are not statistically significant.
The release reads its own percentages through 90% confidence intervals. Its explanatory notes say that when a range does not contain zero, the change is statistically significant, and when it does contain zero, it is uncertain whether there was an increase or a decrease. That rule decides which of the five series below carry a real year-over-year change and which do not. The same rule makes one completions figure significant: not seasonally adjusted, year-to-date five-plus completions are down 16.3% (±11.1%) from the same period of 2025.
Table: Units in buildings with five units or more, United States (Sep 2026 preliminary, released Oct 20, 2026)
| Five-plus-unit series | Sep 2026 (p) | Aug 2026 (r) | Sep 2025 | Year-over-year change (90% CI) | Significant? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Five-plus-unit series Permits, annual rate | Sep 2026 (p) 503,000 | Aug 2026 (r) 475,000 | Sep 2025 498,000 | Year-over-year change (90% CI) +1.0% (no interval published) | Significant? Not tested: Table 1 is not subject to sampling error |
| Five-plus-unit series Authorized but not started, end of month | Sep 2026 (p) 123,000 | Aug 2026 (r) 123,000 | Sep 2025 108,000 | Year-over-year change (90% CI) +13.9% (±13.1%) | Significant? Yes |
| Five-plus-unit series Starts, annual rate | Sep 2026 (p) 349,000 | Aug 2026 (r) 376,000 | Sep 2025 471,000 | Year-over-year change (90% CI) -25.9% (±21.5%) | Significant? Yes |
| Five-plus-unit series Under construction, end of month | Sep 2026 (p) 677,000 | Aug 2026 (r) 677,000 | Sep 2025 699,000 | Year-over-year change (90% CI) -3.1% (±4.3%) | Significant? No: the interval includes zero |
| Five-plus-unit series Completions, annual rate | Sep 2026 (p) 339,000 | Aug 2026 (r) 295,000 | Sep 2025 426,000 | Year-over-year change (90% CI) -20.4% (±25.9%) | Significant? No: the interval includes zero |
Two of these rows measure something different from the other three. Authorized but not started and under construction are seasonally adjusted counts of units at the end of the month. Permits, starts and completions are seasonally adjusted annual rates. Read them side by side; they do not add together. The release prints no confidence interval for permits because, in its words, Table 1 is based on a non-probability sample and is not subject to sampling error, though it is still subject to nonsampling error.
Release: CB26-162, Census Bureau and HUD, October 20, 2026 Data month: September 2026, preliminary Total housing starts, all building sizes, September 2026 (annual rate): 1,221,000 Total building permits, all building sizes, September 2026 (annual rate): 1,400,000 Next release: November 18, 2026
How far did apartment starts fall in September 2026?
Starts in buildings with five or more units, the Census series this article uses for apartment construction, fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 349,000 in September 2026, down 25.9% (±21.5%) from 471,000 in September 2025, according to the October 20 release; the range excludes zero, so the drop is statistically significant.
The monthly move is a different reading. Against August's revised rate of 376,000, September's 349,000 is down 7.2%, but the release puts the 90% confidence interval at ±27.7%, which includes zero, so it cannot say whether five-plus-unit starts rose or fell from August to September. Total starts across all building sizes ran at 1,221,000, down 7.4% (±11.5%) from September 2025, and that change is not statistically significant either.
The year-to-date count does not show a significant change. Not seasonally adjusted, five-plus-unit starts totaled 327,000 in 2026 year to date, against 305,900 in the same period of 2025, a change of +6.9% with a confidence interval of ±10.9%, which includes zero. The release's explanatory notes add that it may take six months to establish an underlying trend for total starts, and that preliminary seasonally adjusted estimates of total permits, starts and completions are revised, on average, by 3.8% or less.
Five-plus-unit starts, September 2026 (annual rate): 349,000 Five-plus-unit starts, August 2026, revised (annual rate): 376,000 Five-plus-unit starts, September 2025 (annual rate): 471,000 Five-plus-unit starts, 2026 year to date (not seasonally adjusted): 327,000
What the release does not show matters as much. Its tables report the five-or-more category as one number. They do not split it into rental and condominium buildings or by metro area, and the regional columns show only total and single-family units. So this article does not assign the September drop to a property type, a city or a cause. A start, in the Census definitions, occurs when excavation begins for the footings or foundation of a building, so all of a multifamily building's units enter the count in the month its excavation begins.
How many permitted units have not started?
At the end of September 2026, 123,000 units in buildings with five or more units were authorized by a permit but not yet started, seasonally adjusted, up 13.9% (±13.1%) from 108,000 a year earlier, the Census Bureau and HUD reported on October 20; the interval excludes zero, so the increase is statistically significant.
The Census Survey of Construction definitions describe this series as housing units authorized by a building or zoning permit for which construction has not yet started, and they note that it covers only the areas of the country that require a building or zoning permit. The release adds two details that matter to anyone holding a permit. The backlog counts units authorized in all months up to the end of the period, without regard to when the permit was issued. And cancelled, abandoned, expired and revoked permits are excluded, so a permit that lapses leaves the count rather than staying in it.
The backlog did not move from August: the revised August figure is also 123,000, a change of 0.0% (±3.6%). New authorizations kept arriving. Permits for five-plus-unit buildings ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 503,000 in September, up from a revised 475,000 in August and from 498,000 in September 2025, a year-over-year change of +1.0%. Not seasonally adjusted, year-to-date five-plus permits were 354,000 in 2026 against 336,900 in 2025, up 5.1%.
Authorized but not started, five-plus units, end of September 2026 (seasonally adjusted): 123,000 Authorized but not started, five-plus units, end of August 2026, revised: 123,000 Authorized but not started, five-plus units, end of September 2025: 108,000 Five-plus-unit permits, September 2026 (annual rate): 503,000
One caution applies to every figure here. The Census definition of the seasonally adjusted annual rate says it is neither a forecast nor a projection; it describes the month it was calculated for. A larger backlog is a count of permitted units waiting at one month end. It says nothing about when, or whether, any one of them breaks ground.
Is the under-construction pipeline shrinking?
The October 20 release does not show a statistically significant shrink: 677,000 units in five-plus-unit buildings were under construction at the end of September 2026, seasonally adjusted, down 3.1% from 699,000 a year earlier, but the ±4.3% confidence interval includes zero, so the release cannot say whether the pipeline grew or shrank.
Against August, the count is flat: the revised August figure is also 677,000, a 0.0% change (±1.4%). Completions read the same way on a year-over-year basis. Five-plus-unit completions ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 339,000 in September, down 20.4% from 426,000 in September 2025, but the ±25.9% interval includes zero, so that drop is not statistically significant. Against August's revised 295,000, September's rate is up 14.9% (±34.4%), which is not significant either.
The one five-plus completions figure that is significant is the year-to-date count. Not seasonally adjusted, 301,600 five-plus units were completed in 2026 year to date, against 360,400 in the same period of 2025, down 16.3% (±11.1%), a range that excludes zero. The Census definitions explain what counts: in a privately owned building with two or more housing units, all of the units are counted as completed when 50 percent or more of them are occupied or available for occupancy.
Under construction, five-plus units, end of September 2026 (seasonally adjusted): 677,000 Under construction, five-plus units, end of September 2025: 699,000 Five-plus-unit completions, September 2026 (annual rate): 339,000 Five-plus-unit completions, 2026 year to date (not seasonally adjusted): 301,600
For a developer, the under-construction count is the supply already in the ground ahead of a new project. On the September data, that count is not statistically different from a year earlier, which is the honest reading of a -3.1% change with a ±4.3% interval.
What should a permitted developer do now?
A developer holding a permit for a five-plus-unit building should treat the September report as context and decide on capital: if the construction loan and the equity can close at today's budget, the permit can become a start; if they cannot, the backlog figure does not change that arithmetic, and the release gives no reason either way.
The report is a national count, and your project is one building with one budget. Work the decision in this order:
- Confirm the permit's clock. Census drops expired permits from the backlog, and your building department sets the expiration and extension rules for yours. Get the date and the extension procedure in writing before you price anything.
- Reprice the budget. Rebuild land, hard costs, soft costs, contingency, financing costs and the interest reserve at current bids, because a construction loan is sized against total project cost. Our guide to how loan-to-cost is calculated on a construction loan walks through what belongs in the denominator.
- Size the gap. Run the repriced budget through the loan-to-cost calculator and treat the difference between total cost and the loan as the equity you must show.
- Source the equity on paper. Name every dollar of the equity, who commits it, and when it funds relative to the first construction draw.
- Run debt and equity in parallel. A loan request built on a stale budget wastes the time a permit clock does not give back, so quote the debt on the repriced numbers while the equity is being committed.
If the stack closes, the permit is worth using now. If it does not, the useful work is on the budget and the equity, not on reading the next monthly release. For how these loans are structured from draw schedule to conversion, see our guide to multifamily construction loans.
How do you get a permitted apartment construction loan placed after the September report?
You get a permitted five-plus-unit construction loan placed by packaging the permit, the current budget and the equity plan once, then comparing loan programs against that file, which is brokerage work; YieldStack, which publishes this article, is our first recommendation for it, for the reasons below.
Option 1, a brokerage (our pick: YieldStack). YieldStack is an AI-native commercial mortgage brokerage that arranges financing for commercial real estate investors. Software matches the deal against 20,000+ loan programs and compares the options; human brokers structure the deal, negotiate on the borrower's side and carry it toward closing. YieldStack reports a median first offer in under an hour, from an institutional lender. It costs Zero upfront to submit a deal and review offers; YieldStack's broker fee is 0.50–1.00% of the loan amount and is paid only at closing. Every credit decision is made by the lender; YieldStack arranges the introductions and negotiates on the borrower's side, and no loan, rate, or closing is guaranteed.
Option 2, a construction lender you already bank with. A relationship lender may know you and the site, but you see one credit view of the budget and one set of terms, and you negotiate the draw conditions and the equity requirement without a comparison beside them.
The file that gets clean quotes on a permitted five-plus-unit project carries the facts the decision turns on:
- The issued permit, with its issue date, expiration date and extension terms
- Plans, the general contractor's bid or contract, and the construction schedule
- A total project budget: land, hard costs, soft costs, contingency, financing costs and interest reserve
- The equity plan: sources, amounts, commitments and funding timing
- A stabilized pro forma, with the source of every rent and expense assumption
- The target loan amount and the loan-to-cost you are asking for
When the file is ready, send the permitted project for review. Loan structure basics are on the construction loan page.
The bottom line
The Census Bureau and HUD's September 2026 read, released October 20, 2026, shows a statistically significant 25.9% year-over-year drop in five-plus-unit starts, to a 349,000 annual rate, beside a significant 13.9% year-over-year rise in units permitted but not started, to 123,000. The September-over-September changes in under construction and completions are not statistically significant, while year-to-date five-plus completions, not seasonally adjusted, are down a significant 16.3% from the same period of 2025. For a permitted developer, the report does not make the decision: closing debt and equity at today's budget does. The figures are preliminary, and the next release is scheduled for November 18, 2026.