Apartment List National Rent Report

• The national median rent increased by 0.5% in April, and now stands at $1,370. This marks the third straight monthly increase, as the market gears up for the busy summer moving season.
• Rent prices nationally are down 1.7% compared to one year ago. Year-over-year rent growth is now at the lowest level that we’ve seen in our estimates going back to 2017, surpassing a record set in the early months of the pandemic. The national median rent has now fallen from its 2022 peak by a total of 5%.
• The national multifamily vacancy rate ticked down to 7.2% this month. After hitting a new record in Q1, the vacancy rate may have now hit its peak and turned the corner. This marks the first time that we’ve seen the vacancy rate decrease in over four years.
• Units are taking an average of 35 days to get leased after being listed, which is five days longer than one year ago, and nearly twice as long as it took units to turn over when the market was at its hottest in mid-2021.
• The Austin, TX metro continues to have the softest conditions among the nation’s large rental markets, with the median rent there down by 5.7% over the past year. At the other end of the spectrum, the Virginia Beach, VA metro now sits atop our rankings of fastest year-over-year rent growth at +5.2%.

Rents up 0.5% month-over-month, down 1.7% year-over-year

The national median rent ticked up by 0.5 percent in April, increasing for the third consecutive month following six straight monthly rent declines. We are now entering the time of year when the bulk of moves take place, and as such, we’ll likely see continued price increases through the summer, in line with typical seasonal patterns. Prices generally soften as fewer renters move during the fall and winter, and then gradually begin to increase as we get closer to the peak moving summer season.

The broad contours of this seasonal pattern are consistent, but in recent years we’ve seen sharper winter dips and more modest summer bumps as the market has gone through a soft spell amid a wave of new multifamily construction. In addition to steeper winter declines since 2022, we have also observed a slight shift in the timing of rental market seasonality. Whereas May used to be the annual peak for rent growth, over the past three years March has been the hottest month, with rent growth slowing down during what were, prior to the pandemic, the months when prices would increase most quickly. This year again, we saw rent growth stall out in April, with month-over-month growth coming in just a hair below the March reading.

Compared to one year ago, the national median rent is down by 1.7 percent. At this time last year, it had appeared that year-over-year rent growth was on track to flip positive for the first time since mid-2023; however, that rebound stalled out and reversed course as demand has slowed amid a more uncertain labor market. Year-over-year rent growth has been gradually dipping further negative for a full year now, and the current reading of -1.7 percent is the lowest year-over-year rent growth recorded in the history of our estimates going back to 2017.

In dollar terms, the national median monthly rent now stands at $1,370, down $23 compared to April 2025. Prices peaked in mid-2022 after a year and a half of skyrocketing growth. Since then, the nationwide median rent has been gradually drifting down and has fallen from that peak by a total of 5 percent, or $72 per month. Despite the pullback in prices, today’s rent levels remain 20 percent higher than they were at the start of 2021.

Multifamily vacancy ticks down to 7.2%, first decline since 2021

The most important driver behind the soft market conditions that have persisted for three years is a historic surge of multifamily construction. The construction boom peaked in 2024, when we saw over 600 thousand new multifamily units hit the market, the most new supply in a single year since 1986. Since then, deliveries of new apartments have slowed considerably, while still remaining robust by historic standards. And even as we’ve been on the downslope of the boom, the market has been struggling to absorb the swell of new inventory.

Our national vacancy index – which measures the average vacancy rate of stabilized properties in our marketplace – recently hit a peak of 7.3 percent, marking the highest level since at least 2017, which is when we started tracking occupancy. This month however, the vacancy rate ticked back down to 7.2 percent, the first time that we have seen a decline in our national vacancy index since late 2021. In the four-plus years since, the vacancy rate has consistently loosened, gradually moving from record lows to record highs. We may now finally be reaching the point where the market begins to stabilize.

That said, this month’s decline was modest, and the vacancy rate remains elevated above its long-run average. And with mixed news on the labor market combined with renewed inflation concerns, there is reason to think that demand could be sluggish headed into the peak moving season. It’s possible that the vacancy rate will simply plateau at this elevated rate, rather than continuing to decline in a meaningful way.

List-to-Lease time remains elevated at 35 days

As more vacant units have come onto the market, those units have also been sitting vacant for 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 a highly-seasonal measure, and ticked down slightly this month, in line with the same seasonal pattern observed in our rent index. Units leased in April had been sitting on the market for an average of 35 days, down from 38 days last month.

Despite the month-over-month decline, list-to-lease time remains notably elevated. This month’s reading is the longest that we’ve seen in any April going back to 2019 when our tracking begins (January’s 41 days set the overall record), and units are taking more than twice as long to turn over as they were in mid-2021 when the market was at its hottest. This extension of list-to-lease time is in line with negative rent growth, soft occupancy, and a generally cool rental market.

Rent declines are mostly concentrated in Sun Belt markets

There are 55 large metropolitan areas across the country that have a population over one million. In April rents increased month-over-month in 51 of these markets, but rents remain down year-over-year in 33 of them. 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 5.7 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 permits (e.g. San Antonio, Denver, Phoenix, Tampa, and Orlando). Notably almost all of these markets are located in the Sun Belt.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Virginia Beach, VA metro currently sits in the top spot for fastest rent growth, with prices there up 5.2 percent over the past year. Two Bay Area metros – San Francisco and San Jose round out the top three, as the AI boom has created a wave of high-paying tech jobs there. A number of midwest markets (e.g. Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis) have also been maintaining steady positive rent growth amid soft national conditions, with the region’s relative affordability propping up demand.

Conclusion

The rental market is beginning to enter its busy season, but multifamily conditions remain soft. Month-over-month rent growth stalled out in April, and year-over-year growth is at a new low. The national vacancy rate, however, ticked down for the first time in four years, perhaps an early sign of conditions beginning to shift as the market finally metabolizes the recent growth in the rental stock. But even as the construction wave recedes, an uncertain macroeconomic outlook presents risks to rental demand.

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.