Things are rapidly improving in multifamily pricing power. But even though such major urban areas as New York City, San Francisco, San Jose, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, and Washington D.C. have seen quick improvement on the ability to raise and maintain rents, markets with less urban concentration are doing better and big cities aren't back to 2019 levels.

Zelman conducts monthly surveys of all aspects of multifamily. "They are relationship based as opposed to most surveys that send out a blast to as many as they can," Dennis McGill, Zelman director of research, tells GlobeSt.com. "It tends to be fairly data rich."

The firm doesn't disclose the number of individuals or organizations reached, but according to McGill, the survey represents more than 1.5 million units. "For context, if you took the seven largest apartment REITs, they're not part [of the survey] but they collectively own 400K, 500K," he says. "It's diversified across more geographies and price points than the public REITs would."