What the Midterms Mean for Multifamily
By Percy Research
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Democrats won both chambers of Congress on Tuesday and took five governors' offices from Republicans, Texas and Georgia among them (AP, November 4). The two states hold about 14% of the nation's apartments (NMHC tabulation of Census data, 2024). Nothing changed on a make-ready board overnight. The calendar did. Here is what moves, where, and when, read from the site office.
The short version
Washington goes divided on January 3. Democratic majorities in both chambers, a Republican president. Expect hearings and appropriations deadlines, not new rules on site before 2028.
Texas has a new governor on January 19 and, it appears, a new House majority. The Legislature convenes January 12. The Texas Apartment Association's top 2027 priority is defending the 2025 eviction-procedure law, which the governor-elect voted against.
Georgia convenes January 11 for 40 legislative days. The governor-elect campaigned on a $15 state minimum wage, a permitting fast track and eviction mediation. The Senate appears to stay Republican.
California approved an $11.25 billion housing bond. The state's analyst counts up to 40,000 affordable rental units over a number of years. On the last bond's timeline, the first awards come late next year and the hiring years after.
The pay floor rises January 1 in 15 states. No statewide rent-control measure was on any ballot.
Washington: hearings, not job descriptions
The 120th Congress convenes on January 3, 2027, unless the outgoing one sets another day. Democrats hold at least 54 Senate seats and the House by a wide margin, with two Senate races still uncalled as of Wednesday (NBC News results, AP data, November 4). Hakeem Jeffries is expected to be elected Speaker and Chuck Schumer majority leader. The president keeps the veto. That combination produces oversight, appropriations deadlines and agency rules. It rarely produces a statute that changes who a property hires.
The housing items that reach a site in the next year were in motion before Tuesday. The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law in July without the president's signature. Its ban on single-family purchases by investors who control 350 or more homes takes effect January 7, with build-to-rent excepted, and Treasury's proposed rule is open for comment until November 23 (Public Law 119-101; Federal Register, October 2026). On November 2, HUD issued a LIHTC Express Lane for FHA Section 221(d)(4) construction loans, with a 30-day commitment target and no 200-unit cap (Mortgagee Letter 2026-13, November 2026), and moved the HOTMA full-compliance date for assisted multifamily to January 1, 2028 (Notice H 2026-07, November 2026). The first shortens the path from award to groundbreaking on affordable deals. The second gives compliance teams at assisted properties another year.
Two federal dates land before the new Congress does. The Federal Reserve decides on December 9; in October it held at 3.75% to 4.00% with two members voting for a hike (Federal Reserve, October 28, 2026). Federal funding under the current continuing resolution runs out December 11 (Public Law 119-103), the date assisted-housing operators plan payment contingencies around. And on January 29, the claims window closes on the $359.9 million RealPage Rental Settlement, paid by 41 settling defendants to close the class action over RealPage's pricing software (settlement administrator; Multifamily Dive, November 3). Residents at the affected properties will be asking about it in the leasing office.
Here is the calendar, with what each item touches on site.
Texas: a divided Capitol and an eviction law to defend
Gina Hinojosa defeated Greg Abbott 52.8% to 45.7% with 97% counted (NBC News results, AP data, November 4), the first Democrat elected governor of Texas since 1990. Democrats also won lieutenant governor, attorney general and comptroller. The Texas House appears to have changed hands for the first time since 2003, with several races uncalled; the Senate held Republican, 19 to 12 in the unofficial count (Texas Tribune, November 4). So the 90th Legislature, which convenes at noon on January 12, will be a divided one, with a Democratic lieutenant governor, Vikki Goodwin, presiding over a Republican Senate. The inauguration is January 19.
Rent control is not on the table. Texas law allows a city to impose it only in a declared disaster, and only with the governor's approval (Local Government Code 214.902), and the governor-elect's platform proposes none; it targets algorithmic rent pricing instead (Hinojosa campaign, 2026). What is on the table reaches the leasing office more directly. The Texas Apartment Association's 2027 agenda leads with defending SB 38, the 2025 law that rewrote eviction procedure and took effect January 1, 2026 (TAA, 2026). Hinojosa voted against it on final passage in the House (Vote Smart, May 2025). She also campaigned on raising the state minimum wage, now the federal $7.25, without naming a figure, and on cutting residential property taxes, with elimination as the stated goal; she has said "I don't know if we can get there" (Houston Chronicle, October 2026).
Three dates carry the real levers in a divided Capitol. January 31: two or three seats on the board of the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, which writes the state's tax-credit rules, come open for the governor to fill. Early February: the State of the State, where governors name the emergency items that can move in the first 60 days when nothing else can. March 12: the bill-filing deadline. Bills can be prefiled from Monday, November 9. One line from outside the Capitol belongs here too: the Texas Tribune's affordability guide reports that immigration enforcement has already tightened the construction labor pool (Texas Tribune, October 2026). Service technicians and make-ready teams draw from the same pool.
Georgia: $15 on the agenda, 40 days to pass it
Keisha Lance Bottoms won 54.3% to 45.7% (Georgia Secretary of State, unofficial, November 4), and Democrats won every statewide office, including labor commissioner, which in Georgia is an elected job that runs the Department of Labor. Democrats are poised to take the Georgia House for the first time in 22 years if their leads hold, with some seats inside the recount margin; Republicans appeared to keep a narrow Senate majority (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 4). The General Assembly convenes January 11 for a 40-legislative-day session, with the inauguration that week. Counties certify by November 9 and the state by November 20.
Georgia bars local governments from regulating rents (O.C.G.A. 44-7-19), and the governor-elect has taken no position on that statute. Her platform is a permitting fast track, expanded renter and down-payment assistance, an affordable-housing trust fund, and limits on corporate purchases of single-family homes (Bottoms campaign, 2025 and 2026). On evictions she proposes mediation before filing and more rental assistance, in a metro that led the nation with more than 144,000 filings in 2025 (Eviction Lab, via Capital B Atlanta, October 2026). On pay she campaigned on a $15 state minimum wage. Georgia's own minimum is $5.15, so the federal $7.25 governs most employers (Georgia Department of Labor, 2026). A wage bill needs both chambers, and the Senate is the harder one.
The industry's calendar is set. The Georgia Apartment Association's Advocacy Day is February 22, and the Atlanta association's recent priorities have been insurance costs and eviction timelines, which its president put at six months or more in metro Atlanta (Atlanta Apartment Association, 2025). Those two items will be on the table whoever holds the gavel.
California: the bond passed; the hiring is years out
Proposition 1 was approved with 59.4% voting yes (California Secretary of State, November 4; AP, which called it on election night, put the count at about 58% of the expected vote). It authorizes $11.25 billion in general obligation bonds, including $5.1 billion to build and rehabilitate multifamily rental housing and $2.1 billion to acquire and preserve affordable housing (Attorney General's summary, Official Voter Guide, 2026). The Legislative Analyst's Office counts subsidies for up to 40,000 multifamily rental units and homeownership help for up to 40,000 households, "allocated over a number of years" (LAO, 2026).
The money moves slowly. The last bond that funded the Multifamily Housing Program passed in November 2018; the first Multifamily Housing Program awards from it came in December 2019 (HCD, 2019). Tax credits, not bond dollars, are the binding constraint on each deal. Read from that precedent, the first awards are a late-2027 floor, construction runs behind them, and the lease-up and compliance hiring lands in 2029 and after. The employers will be nonprofit developers and the affordable operators that manage for them. The roles are compliance specialists and lease-up teams that know the tax-credit file.
Two other results belong on the list. Proposition 37, a $25 billion revenue bond for middle-income buyers of new homes, passed with 61% and must launch within a year of taking effect, so by about December 2027 (initiative text, Section 51515.05; LAO, 2026); the move-outs to purchase arrive with the homes. Proposition 45, which would have set deadlines on environmental review, was trailing 46% to 54% with about 57% counted (CalMatters, November 4).
The rest of the map
Florida and Arizona stayed with the party in office: Republican Byron Donalds won Florida's open seat 50.0% to 48.7%, and Arizona reelected Katie Hobbs (NBC News results, AP data, November 4). Florida's minimum wage reached $15 on September 30 and holds there through 2027; Arizona's rises to $15.65 on January 1 (state labor agencies, 2026). Nevada's governor-elect, Aaron Ford, campaigned on limits on corporate purchases of single-family homes, a ban on algorithmic rent pricing and a one-month cap on deposits, and said rent control is not in his plan (Ford campaign; Nevada Independent, January 2026); his predecessor twice vetoed senior rent caps, and the Legislature convenes February 1. Iowa's Rob Sand campaigned on permitting reform and a ban on algorithmic rent pricing (Iowa Capital Dispatch, September 2026); Ohio's Amy Acton on property-tax relief (Ohio Capital Journal, October 2026), faster permitting and limits on corporate home purchases (Columbus Underground, October 2026).
The pay floor is where the map moved most. On January 1 the minimum wage rises in 15 states, to $17.73 in Washington, $17.40 in California, $15.71 in Colorado and $15.00 in Michigan among them (state labor departments, 2026). Pennsylvania went to full Democratic control, and with its minimum still the federal $7.25, the Inquirer lists an increase among the new majority's priorities (Philadelphia Inquirer, November 4). The floor reaches porters, housekeepers and groundskeepers first, and the compression above them second; service technicians and leasing professionals sit well above it, and the budget line that moves is the gap between them.
No statewide rent-control measure was on any 2026 ballot (Ballotpedia, 2026); Massachusetts's initiative was struck from the ballot by the Supreme Judicial Court in June. Rhode Island approved a $120 million housing bond with projects expected to start in 2028 (Rhode Island Current, November 4). Locally, Berkeley's Measure X was passing with 67%, San Pablo's 3% cap was leading, and Redwood City's measure was trailing (county registrars, November 4). Rent regulation moved one city at a time, in one state, as it has for years.
What this means for hiring
Texas and Georgia regionals get a session to read. Nothing in either platform rewrites a job description, but eviction procedure, the pay floor and property tax all run through the leasing office or the budget. The question for a regional in either state is who at the apartment association is tracking the session for them, named before January 11.
For affordable operators, the bench is a 2028 problem that starts in 2027. California's awards, Rhode Island's bond and HUD's faster construction loans shorten the same path, and the compliance specialists who know the tax-credit file are already scarce.
The floor moves before the middle does. A minimum wage change reaches porters, housekeepers and groundskeepers first. Service technicians and leasing professionals are already paid well above it. The budget line that moves is the gap between them.
Percy's take
Elections move the calendar first. The hiring question after a result is who needs to be in place before each date, not what the result means.
In a divided Capitol, watch what the governor can do alone. Appointments, emergency items and vetoes move before bills do. For Texas that is the TDHCA board on January 31 and the State of the State in February; for Georgia it is the agencies and the budget.
Price the gap now. Where the minimum wage is the federal rate and the new majority campaigned on raising it, price the distance between the floor and the service technician. The 2027 bands closed in October, so it goes in as a mid-year adjustment and into the 2028 bands next fall.
Start the affordable bench before the awards. The bond is passed and the loans are faster. The compliance hires are the slow part.
Nothing on Tuesday changed who a property needs. It changed the dates by which the people who run it need to know.
What to watch
November 9: Texas bill prefiling opens; Georgia counties certify. November 20: Georgia certifies; the House majority becomes official or goes to recount.
November 23: comments close on Treasury's proposed rule for the 350-home purchase ban (Federal Register notice).
December 9: the Federal Reserve's decision (meeting calendar). December 11: the continuing resolution expires.
January 1: minimum wages rise in 15 states. January 3: the 120th Congress convenes. January 7: the ROAD Act takes effect.
January 11: Georgia's General Assembly convenes; the inauguration follows that week. Iowa convenes the same day.
January 12: Texas's 90th Legislature convenes at noon and the House elects a speaker. January 19: the Texas inauguration.
January 26 to 28: the NMHC Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, where the industry states its asks to the new Congress (NMHC meetings). January 29: claims close on the RealPage Rental Settlement (settlement site).
January 31: TDHCA board seats open for the new governor to fill. February 1: Nevada's Legislature convenes. February 22: Georgia Apartment Association Advocacy Day (event page).
March 12: Texas bill-filing deadline. March 16 to 17: NAA Advocate in Washington (event page). March 31: Georgia's scheduled adjournment. May 31: Texas adjourns.
The Texas and Georgia sessions are the kind of thing we would want to write about as they open.
Notes on the numbers
Every figure above is cited where it appears, to the calling desk (AP, via NBC News results), the state election authority, the statute or the agency document, with results marked as of Wednesday, November 4, and still counting where they are. Candidate positions come from campaign sites and the outlets named, and are reported as positions, not predictions. The apartment-stock shares are NMHC's tabulation of Census data; no Percy data appears in this piece.
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Percy recruits community managers, leasing professionals, service technicians and compliance specialists for apartment operators in Texas, Georgia and the states on this list. If your 2027 plan has a hire tied to one of these dates, talk to us.