Apartment List National Rent Report

• The national median rent fell 1.0% in November, and now stands at $1,367. This was the fourth consecutive month-over-month decline, as we’re now in the midst of the rental market’s off-season. It’s likely that we will close out the year with an additional modest rent decline in December.
• Rent prices nationally are down 1.1% 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 5.2%.
• TThe national multifamily vacancy rate remains at 7.2% this month, a 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 36 days to get leased after being listed, two days 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 6.8% 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 +5.2%.

Rents down 1.0% month-over-month, down 1.1% year-over-year

The national median rent dipped by 1.0 percent in November, marking the fourth straight monthly decline. November is historically the rental market’s slowest month, and it is likely prices will continue to decline modestly in the coming December and January. This is in line with the typical seasonal pattern of rent growth, as fewer renters are looking to move when temperatures dip and the holiday season approaches.

While it’s expected to see rent prices dip slightly at this time of year, recently we’ve seen some slight shifts to the timing of rental market seasonality. 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.

November’s rent decline this year (-1.0 percent) was a bit steeper than last year’s (-0.8 percent), and so we observe a small dip in year-over-year rent growth, down to -1.1 percent nationwide. Earlier this year, it appeared that annual growth was on track to flip positive for the first time since mid-2023; however, that rebound stalled out and reversed course during a particularly slow summer.

In dollar terms, the national median monthly rent now stands at $1,367, down $16 per month compared to November 2024. As prices have trended downward in recent years, the national median rent has now fallen below its August 2022 peak by a total of 5.1 percent, or $75 per month. But that cooldown came following a period of record-setting rent growth in 2021-2022, and today the median rent remains 19 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 – sits at 7.2 in November. 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 fifth 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. This “list-to-lease” time is rising as we approach the new year, and currently sits at 36 days in November, just shy of the peak set last January.

This increase in list-to-lease time is in line with rent growth turning negative and a general off-season cooling of the rental market. Time on market is up more than two full days compared to last November, and double what it was in summer 2021, when the average unit was turning over in just 18 days.

Rent declines are mostly concentrated in Sun Belt markets

There are 54 large metropolitan areas across the country that have a population over one million. After a slow November, rents declined month-over-month in 52 of these markets, and rents are down year-over-year in 29. Rent trends vary significantly by region, with annual declines currently concentrated primarily in the South and Mountain West regions. Meanwhile, many markets in the Northeast, Midwest, and parts of the West Coast continue to see prices trend up despite the winter slowdown.

Austin has seen the nation’s sharpest decline among large metros – the metro-wide median rent there has fallen 6.8 percent in the last 12 months and is down more than 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 remains in the top spot for fastest rent growth, with prices there up 5.2% 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 and New York. But that affordability advantage is rapidly waning – the median rent in Providence is now over 40 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.