The Abridged version:
- Developers last year completed the most new multifamily housing units in a single year since at least 2001, according to Sacramento Area Council of Governments data.
- Almost 70% of housing in the Sacramento region includes single-family, detached units — much higher than the rate in San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles.
- About 3,500 affordable multifamily housing units were permitted in the region last year, nearly 10 times the number of affordable multifamily housing units permitted in 2019.
The Sacramento region added a historic number of apartments and condominiums last year amid a push by the region’s leaders to increase high-density affordable housing, new data shows.
But the trend may already be fading as a new construction slowdown takes hold.
Unlike several of California’s biggest metros, the Sacramento region is dominated by houses with lawns. Almost 70% of the region’s housing is single-family, detached units — much higher than the rate in San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles (but similar to the rate in the Inland Empire), census data shows.
Bucking that trend, developers completed about 4,740 multifamily housing units in the six-county region — which includes Yuba and Sutter counties — last year, more than any year since at least 2001, according to the latest figures from the Sacramento Area Council of Governments.
Those multifamily units represented about 38% of the region’s new housing supply, almost double the roughly 20% of housing completed between 2001 and 2024.
“We need to provide options for all kinds of folks and all kinds of households at different stages of life, and multifamily permits are a part of creating that choice,” said Dov Kadin, senior planner at SACOG.
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Growth, affordability explain trend
A few factors explain the sharp increase, housing experts said.
As many of the state’s coastal urban areas lost people, Sacramento continued to grow. During and immediately after the pandemic, many people moved from more expensive coastal cities to the Sacramento Valley, looking for a bargain.
Recent state policies have strongly encouraged local cities to develop more affordable housing. During the pandemic, the state stepped up enforcement of laws meant to ensure cities build enough housing to meet the needs of current and future residents. State officials even sued the city of Elk Grove in 2023 over affordable housing.
In the Sacramento region, SACOG has developed the Green Means Go project, which provides funding and support to help cities establish areas for infill development. The program has attracted more than $60 million in outside funding, Kadin said.
Multifamily housing often more affordable
Like much of California, housing costs are high in the Sacramento region. Multifamily units can alleviate some of that pressure, especially for young adults without the savings or the salary to purchase a detached home.
About 3,500 affordable multifamily housing units were permitted in the region last year (though not necessarily completed), nearly 10 times the number of affordable multifamily housing units permitted in 2019, a SACOG analysis found.
The city of Sacramento is responsible for much of the trend, but “just this past year we saw this really pretty substantial bumper crop of multifamily in some of our higher-demand suburban cities,” Kadin said.
Davis, Elk Grove, Roseville and Folsom each completed at least 500 multifamily housing units in 2025, SACOG data shows.
Those figures represent a big shift. In Elk Grove, for example, almost 90% of housing units are single-family detached, as are more than 70% of units in Folsom and Roseville, census data shows. Only Davis, with a plethora of student-focused housing, has long been a bastion of high-density residential development — and it had seen a lull in new construction until recently.
Is the trend already done?
The trend may be slowing, though, if it is not already over.
Data from real estate tracking firm Colliers shows a sharp decline in new multifamily housing construction so far this year. Citing figures from Realpage, the firm projects that the number of market rate housing units completed in 2026 will be about 60% lower than the average number completed each year between 2022 and 2025.
Will Austin, research manager for the Sacramento and Northern Nevada markets at Colliers, said that the flow of residents from the coast, which was partially a result of generous work-from-home policies, has slowed down. Also, international migration has declined sharply amid crackdowns by the Trump administration.
Meanwhile, rent prices have stabilized and apartment managers are even increasingly offering concessions to lure tenants.
“The economics of what they’re seeing has changed, which is why rents are effectively flat, and we also don’t have that ongoing demand from population growth and net migration,” Austin said.
It is difficult to predict the medium- and long-term future of multifamily housing in Sacramento, which has long gone through bursts of activity, followed by dry periods.
Austin said he expects that — even if housing production declines for a period — multifamily units will continue to make up a larger share of new housing going forward than it has in the past.
“It’s just a question of density: I can build more on less land in multifamily than I can with single-family,” he said.
Austin’s data doesn’t track affordable housing and student housing, which could continue to expand even as market rate multifamily housing pulls back. The Los Rios Community College District and Sacramento State University both plan to support more multifamily housing.
“Don’t discount things like student housing and what Sac State wants to do downtown — that would be a big boon for the city,” Austin said.
