It is little surprise that multifamily owners are finding that pricing power—a measure of their ability to raise and maintain rents—is on their side. Now, research from Zelman & Associates has identified those markets where landlords wield the greatest influence. The findings are based on the year-over-year change in multifamily pricing power. Simply put, the dramatic increase in multifamily operators' pricing power is driven by rapidly increasing home prices, which is limiting homeownership opportunities for renters, and decreasing new multifamily completions, Zelman & Associates says. According to Walker & Dunlop's Multifamily Outlook, new multifamily completions as of the third quarter were down 20% from the average pace of the previous four years. Further driving the pricing power for multifamily operators is the lack of rental supply—the number of projects under construction ended the third quarter down 22% from its Q1 2020 peak, according to Zelman & Associates. With supply lagging demand, vacancy rates plummeted over the past year. At 4.7% in the third quarter, vacancy is down by 2.6% from a year ago. The numbers in the above slideshow represent a year over year change in a 0-100 pricing power index.