Two hikes since February have quietly clawed back some of the relief three cuts delivered last year. Ran the full portfolio numbers again this month, same routine I've kept since 2022, and the buffer on a couple of properties has genuinely thinned compared to where it sat six months ago.
Nothing's gone negative. The rent growth of the last year, feeding off the vacancy numbers I keep writing about, has provided real cover that didn't exist back during the original hiking cycle in 2023. That's the actual difference this time around, rents have kept pace in a way they hadn't fully caught up to back then.
Still, the discipline holds regardless of which direction rates are moving. Rerun the numbers every time something changes. That habit's the one constant across four years of a market that's done almost everything except stay still.