Ellsbury Group's David Orton joined the Investment Sales & Brokerage panel at InterFace Indianapolis Multifamily 2026. Here's our read on where the market goes from here.
INDIANAPOLIS — David Orton, Indianapolis Market Director at Ellsbury Group, took the stage at InterFace Indianapolis Multifamily 2026 on Tuesday, August 11, joining the Investment Sales & Brokerage panel at the Columbia Club on Monument Circle. The half-day conference — hosted by France Media's InterFace Conference Group alongside Heartland Real Estate Business and Multifamily & Affordable Housing Business — brings owners, developers, lenders and brokers together for a candid read on where the Indianapolis apartment market is actually trading, not where the headlines say it is.
Orton's seat on that panel was earned the way it should be: seventeen years underwriting multifamily, a prior run as Director of Acquisitions for a private family office managing more than $375 million in assets nationwide, and a background as a certified Level II assessor/appraiser that means he reads a rent roll and a tax bill with equal fluency.
Below is our take on the three things that matter most for anyone who owns, buys, or lends on apartments in Central Indiana right now.
1. The supply wave broke — and Indianapolis never got fully soaked
The story of the last three years in multifamily was oversupply. Sun Belt markets put shovels in the ground in 2021 and 2022 and spent 2024 and 2025 paying for it in concessions.
Indianapolis had a much more disciplined run. And the pipeline is now emptying fast. The Indy MSA is on pace for a roughly 65% year-over-year decline in new multifamily supply for 2025, with construction starts contracting sharply across 2024 and 2025. Nationally, completions are projected to drop from about 590,000 units in 2025 to roughly 430,000 in 2026 (Walker & Dunlop).
Here's why that's the single most important number on this page: the supply you compete with in 2027 was decided by what broke ground in 2024 and 2025. Very little did. Owners who hold through the next 18 months are looking at a market where lease-up competition thins out and concessions become a choice rather than a requirement.
2. Rent growth has a runway, not a ceiling
Indianapolis has now posted annual rent growth above the U.S. average for 30 consecutive months through early 2026 (Arbor Realty Trust).
Streaks invite skepticism — fair enough. So look at the room left to run instead. Indianapolis rents sit approximately 31% below the national average, and overall housing costs run about 23% below U.S. levels (Walker & Dunlop). Yardi Matrix projects roughly 1.9% rent growth for Indianapolis in 2026 — among the strongest in the Midwest, alongside Kansas City and just behind Boston and Washington, D.C.
That affordability gap is the asset. In an expensive coastal market, a 4% rent bump is a resident-retention problem. In Indianapolis, there is real distance between current rents and the point where affordability becomes the binding constraint on demand. That's the difference between rent growth that's borrowed from the future and rent growth that's actually there.
3. Capital is rotating back to the Midwest — quietly
Indianapolis outranked every other U.S. metro in Arbor's latest Top Markets for Multifamily Investment report. The fundamentals behind that ranking are unglamorous and durable:
- The metro added more than 26,600 residents in 2024, reaching 2.17 million — 1.24% growth, ahead of Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati and Cleveland
- Metro unemployment fell from 4.0% to 3.3% between August 2024 and August 2025
- The labor force is up 7.8% since August 2019 — nearly double the 4.3% national pace
- Statewide, Indiana drew roughly 11,600 net residents from Illinois in 2024 (25,700 in, ~14,100 out)
(Sources: Arbor Realty Trust, Walker & Dunlop, U.S. Census Bureau)
Institutional capital spent 2021–2023 paying a premium for Sun Belt growth stories. A lot of that capital is now looking for markets where the growth is slower but the underwriting actually holds. Indianapolis is squarely on that list — and the bid-ask gap that stalled deals through 2024 has narrowed considerably as a result.
What this means if you own multifamily in Indiana
If you're thinking about selling: the buyer pool for well-located Indianapolis product is materially deeper than it was 18 months ago, and the thinning supply pipeline gives buyers a defensible growth story to underwrite. That combination — more bidders plus a cleaner forward narrative — is what actually moves pricing. Waiting for rates to come to you is a strategy; it's just not usually the best one.
If you're buying: basis is still reasonable relative to replacement cost — and with new supply down roughly 65% year over year, replacement cost isn't getting cheaper. The window where you can buy below the cost to build, in a market with 30 straight months of above-average rent growth, is not a permanent feature of the landscape.
If you're holding: run the numbers on your 2027 competitive set, not your 2026 one. It probably looks better than you think.
About David Orton
David Orton is Indianapolis Market Director for Ellsbury Group. He has spent 17 years in multifamily investment sales and acquisitions, including a tenure as Director of Acquisitions for a private family office with more than $375 million in assets under management nationwide. He is a certified Level II Assessor/Appraiser and holds a B.S. in Finance and Real Estate from the Kelley School of Business. Outside the office he coaches girls' recreational soccer.
Talk to David: (317) 412-1572 · [email protected]
About Ellsbury Group
Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Chicago, Ellsbury Group is one of the Midwest's fastest-growing commercial multifamily brokerages. The firm has closed more than 1,000 transactions representing over $2 billion in sales volume and 16,000+ rental units traded across the Midwest and Southeast, with deep specialization in secondary and tertiary markets.
We don't just follow the market — we shape it.
Sources
- Walker & Dunlop — Indianapolis Multifamily Investment Outlook
- Arbor Realty Trust — Indianapolis Multifamily Market Snapshot, June 2026
- InterFace Indianapolis Multifamily 2026 — InterFace Conference Group
- Yardi Matrix 2026 rent growth projections, as reported by Walker & Dunlop
