An apartment for rent sign is posted outside an apartment building in San Francisco, California on December 4, 2025.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
Apartment rents continued to fall into the new year, but fresh supply is still moving through the market and landlords are seeking to gain pricing power for struggling consumers.
The national median rent was $1,353 in January, down 1.4% from a year ago, according to Apartment List. This is the fourth consecutive winter with a “significant” off-season decline, the largest annual decline since September 2023, and the lowest January rent since 2022. Rents are currently 6.2% lower than their previous peak in summer 2022.
The national vacancy rate in January was 7.3%, the highest ever recorded in the Apartment List Index since 2017. It also took an average of 41 days for rental properties to be rented, four days longer than in January 2025 and also the highest on the index.
“Early last year, annual rent growth appeared to be on track to turn positive for the first time since mid-2023, but that recovery has stalled, reversed course during the slump in the summer moving season, and now as we enter winter,” said Chris Salviati, chief economist at Apartment List.
The record supply of new apartments has peaked, but there is still a significant amount coming through the pipeline. This comes in the face of weak demand due to a tight job market and slowing household formation.
Locally, most of the annual decline is in the South and Mountain West regions. Rent prices continue to rise in some markets in the Northeast, Midwest, and West Coast despite the general economic downturn this winter.
Austin, Texas has earned the dubious honor of being the weakest rental market in the nation, with median rents down 6.3% year-over-year. New Orleans follows. San Antonio; Tucson, Arizona; And Denver.
Virginia Beach, VA has the fastest rental growth rate at 5%. San Jose and San Francisco, California, follow. Chicago; and Providence, Rhode Island.
“While the construction wave that has driven this situation is waning, whether market conditions change depends on rental demand. Weak labor markets and general economic uncertainty make the outlook for rental demand increasingly volatile,” Salviati wrote.
