ApartmentAdvisor National Rent Report

This month’s report focuses on three key findings:

1. Every October, median rent prices decrease. This year is no exception.
2. The Southeast and Southwest have seen significant rent declines year over year.
3. Louisiana saw the biggest month-over-month rent drop at the state level.

National Overview: Peak renting season is over, and median prices are down.

The national rent median for a one-bedroom is down almost 2% since last month, from $1,539 to $1,510.

The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment is down month over month by 1% or more in 44 of the key cities that we track. Rental prices are up by 1% or more in only 17 cities since September. This aligns with the conclusion of renting season, as fall is typically a less popular time to rent an apartment than summer. For the last three years, we’ve seen MoM rent decreases between roughly 1 and 2% in October. We typically observe this trend across apartments of all bedroom counts that we track, though there is some variance in the scale of rent decreases depending on the type of apartment. For example, studios and apartments with three-plus bedrooms saw smaller swings in rent price over the last three years.

Regional Deep Dive: Rent is continuing to drop across the South.

Earlier this year, we commented on plummeting rent prices in the Southeast thanks to ample construction in much of the region. It’s a similar story in the Southwest.

Simply put, in many Southern cities, there’s just more space for housing — unlike smaller, more cramped regions like the Northeast. So, even where there is a lot of demand for Southern cities like Phoenix, AZ or Austin, TX, there seems to be enough residential construction to sustain the new renters and maintain relative housing affordability.

When looking across all the cities that we track in the Southeast, on average, it’s about 5% cheaper to rent in the region now than it was this time last year. The only housing markets that saw significant median asking rent increases (which we are defining as larger than 1%) since October 2023 are Charleston, SC (+5% YoY) and Little Rock, AK (+7% YoY).

Meanwhile, in the Southwest, the average rent decrease across all rental markets that we track was 6% — and there is not a single city that we track where rent was more expensive this year than it was last year. The biggest year over year drops were seen in Texan cities: Corpus Christi (-14% YoY), Dallas (-10% YoY), Austin (-8% YoY), Houston (-8% YoY), and San Antonio (-5% YoY). Plus, in the Southwest, the median rent price for a one-bedroom apartment is lower than the national median in every city that we track.