Apartment List National Rent Report

• The national median rent dipped by 0.8% in October, and now stands at $1,381. This was the third consecutive month-over-month decline, as we’re now in the midst of the rental market’s off-season. It’s likely that we’ll continue to see further modest rent declines to close out the year.
• Rent prices nationally are down 0.9% compared to one year ago. Year-over-year rent growth has been slightly negative for over two full years, and the national median rent has now fallen from its 2022 peak by a total of 4.2%.
• The national multifamily vacancy rate ticked up to 7.2% this month, setting a new record high for our index. We're past the peak of a multifamily construction surge, but a healthy supply of new units are still hitting the market and colliding with sluggish demand, causing vacancies to continue trending up.
• Units are taking an average of 33 days to get leased after being listed, up one day from last month’s reading, and one day longer than at this time last year.
• The Austin metro currently has the softest conditions among the nation’s large rental markets, with the median rent there down by 6.5% over the past year. At the other end of the spectrum, the Providence, RI metro now sits atop our rankings of fastest year-over-year rent growth at +5.3%.

Rents down 0.8% month-over-month, down 0.9% year-over-year

The national median rent dipped by 0.8 percent in October, marking the third straight monthly decline. We’re now solidly into the rental market’s slow season, and it’s likely that rent prices nationally will continue to decline through the remainder of the year. This is in keeping with the typical seasonal pattern of rent growth, as fewer renters are generally looking to move as temperatures turn cooler and the holiday season approaches.

While it’s expected to see rent prices dip slightly at this time of year, we’ve also seen some slight shifts to the timing of rental market seasonality in recent years. Monthly rent growth peaked at +0.7 percent in March this year, but it then began to gradually trend down during the peak moving months, when rent growth is normally fastest. The flip to negative month-over-month growth also came a bit earlier than what we saw in pre-pandemic years, making this the third straight year that prices have begun to dip in August.

Although rents fell more in October than they did in September, this month’s decline was right in line with what we saw in October of last year, and as a result, year-over-year rent growth held steady at -0.9 percent. Earlier this year, it appeared that year-over-year growth was on track to flip positive for the first time since mid-2023. However, that rebound stalled out and reversed course over the summer as year-over-year growth dipped for five consecutive months. Over the past three months, it has leveled off, neither rebounding nor turning further negative.

In dollar terms, the national median monthly rent now stands at $1,381, down $13 per month compared to October 2024. With the overall trajectory of rents trending modestly downward in recent years, the national median rent has now fallen below its August 2022 peak by a total of 4.2 percent, or $61 per month. But that cooldown came following a period of record-setting rent growth, and the typical rent price remains 21 percent higher than its January 2021 level.

Multifamily vacancy rate hits 7.2%, a new peak

The most important driver behind the soft rent growth of recent years has been a historic surge of multifamily construction. 2024 saw over 600 thousand new multifamily units hit the market, the most new supply in a single year since 1986. We’re now past the peak of that supply wave, but multifamily construction remains elevated. 243 thousand multifamily units were completed in the first half of this year – that’s down 27 percent from the second half of 2024, but still 31 percent higher than the 10-year average for first half completions. Similarly, the number of units still under construction has fallen considerably from its peak but remains solidly above the long run average, indicating that we’re not quite through with the supply boom.

As a result of all this new inventory, more vacant units are sitting on the market, meaning that property owners face more competition for renters and have less pricing leverage. Our national vacancy index – which measures the average vacancy rate of stabilized properties in our marketplace – ticked up to 7.2 percent in October. This represents an all-time high for this data series, going back to the start of 2017. As the supply wave continues to recede, these occupancy and pricing trends should begin to gradually shift, but for now the market is still absorbing a swell of new units. At the same time, a shaky labor market seems to be putting a damper on housing demand, another factor contributing to sluggish rental market conditions persisting longer than we anticipated at the outset of this year.

List-to-Lease time ticks up for fourth straight month

As more vacant units have come onto the market, those units have also been sitting vacant for somewhat longer. Our time on market index tells us how long it takes for units to get leased after they are first listed on our platform. The typical “list-to-lease” time peaked at 37 days nationally in January, an all-time high going back to the start of the data series in 2019. We have since come down from that peak, but October saw time on market tick up for the fourth consecutive month, increasing from 32 days in September to 33 days this month.

The increasing list-to-lease time that we’ve seen recently is in line with the transition to negative rent growth coinciding with the market’s off-season. But in addition to that seasonal trend, units are also sitting a bit longer than they typically do at this time of year, a signal of market softness that’s also in line with our rent growth and vacancy estimates. The median time on market nationally is currently one day longer than at this time last year, and units are sitting for 12 days longer than they were in October 2021 when the market was at its tightest.

Rent declines are mostly concentrated in Sun Belt markets

Rents declined month-over-month in 50 of the nation’s 54 large metropolitan areas with a population of over one million. At the same time, just 26 of these markets have seen rents fall since this time last year. Rent trends vary significantly by region, with year-over-year declines currently concentrated primarily in the South and Mountain West regions. Meanwhile, many markets in the Northeast, Midwest, and parts of the West Coast are seeing prices trend up.

Austin has seen the nation’s sharpest decline among large metros – the metro-wide median rent there has fallen 6.5 percent in the last 12 months and is down 20% from its 2022 peak. The Austin metro is also significant for permitting new homes at the fastest pace of any large metro in the country, indicating the impact of new supply on softening rents. Austin is not alone in exhibiting this trend; among the ten metros with the sharpest year-over-year rent declines, many also rank among the highest in terms of multifamily permitting activity (e.g. Denver, Phoenix, San Antonio, Dallas, and Orlando). Notably almost all of these markets are located in the Sun Belt.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Providence, RI metro has now moved into the top spot for fastest rent growth, with prices there up 5.3% over the past year. Rapid rent growth is nothing new in Providence, as the area has experienced a sharp influx of demand over the past five years, owing to its status as a more affordable alternative to nearby Boston. But that affordability advantage is rapidly waning – the median rent in Providence is now 41 percent higher than it was in early 2020, the most significant increase over that period among large metros. As remote and hybrid work arrangements allow more workers to relocate further from the office, it seems that the affordability woes of some expensive markets are expanding outward.

Conclusion

All of our key indicators are pointing toward ongoing sluggishness in the multifamily rental market – rent prices are down and the vacancy rate is at an all-time high. As construction slows further during the tail end of this year and into 2026, rent prices and occupancy should begin to stabilize, and a return to tighter market conditions remains on the horizon. That said, the supply boom still has a bit of runway remaining, and the demand outlook has begun to appear weaker amid a shaky labor market. These factors could lengthen the time that it takes for the market to metabolize the recent growth in the rental stock.

Complete Data and Methodology

All of the underlying data presented in this report is freely available on our rental data download page, where you can find the full monthly history of our rent estimates, vacancy index, and time on market index at various geographic levels (national, state, metro, county, and city).

Apartment List has long been committed to making our data products as accurate and transparent as possible. For those interested in getting deeper in the technical weeds, please see our rent estimate methodology explainer and vacancy index methodology explainer. And if you have any questions or custom data requests, you can reach us at research@apartmentlist.com.