Rent Discounts Spread to 43.5% of Listings as Apartment Owners Fight for Tenants

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Apartment operators are leaning harder on concessions to fill units, with 43.5% of rental listings across the 50 largest U.S. metros advertising some form of incentive in August, according to Realtor.com’s latest rental data.

The share was up from 40.4% a year earlier and accompanied another decline in advertised rents. The median asking rent for studio, one- and two-bedroom properties fell 0.9% year over year to $1,699, marking the 37th consecutive month of annual declines in Realtor.com’s series.

The combination matters for multifamily owners because advertised rent increasingly tells only part of the pricing story. A landlord can preserve the headline monthly rent while offering free weeks, rent credits or waived fees that lower the tenant’s effective cost.

Concessions are becoming the norm in major Sun Belt markets

In 18 of the 50 metros tracked by Realtor.com, more than half of rental listings offered a concession in August. Denver led the country at 71.9%, followed by Austin at 70.7%, Las Vegas at 69.6%, Nashville at 69.0% and San Antonio at 67.9%.

Other markets above 50% included Tampa, Jacksonville, Houston, Orlando, Seattle, Charlotte, Phoenix, Dallas-Fort Worth, Richmond, Atlanta, Washington, Birmingham and Portland.

Concession rates increased from a year earlier in 39 of the 50 metros. Realtor.com defines concessions to include incentives such as waived application fees, rent credits and periods of free rent.

The geographic pattern is important. Many of the highest-concession markets are places where apartment construction expanded rapidly after the pandemic, giving renters more alternatives and forcing operators to compete harder for occupancy.

Asking rent is not always effective rent

The national median asking rent is now $65, or 3.7%, below its summer 2022 peak, though it remains $227, or 15.4%, above August 2019.

But concessions can make the effective price lower than the advertised number. A free month on a 12-month lease, for example, reduces the first-year rent paid without requiring an owner to permanently lower the property’s quoted monthly rate.

That distinction matters to owners, lenders and appraisers assessing apartment performance. Concessions can protect occupancy and headline rents, but persistent incentives can also signal that a property is struggling to achieve its stated pricing in the market.

Realtor.com’s data also show that the pressure is not uniform. San Jose and San Francisco posted some of the sharpest year-over-year declines in concession rates while rents in both markets rose more than 4%, a divergence Realtor.com linked to stronger rental demand in the Bay Area.

What multifamily professionals should watch

Realtor.com expects rental supply already in the pipeline to keep reaching the market, which could prolong renter leverage in markets where new units are still being absorbed. Its midyear forecast calls for rents to decline 1.2% in 2026.

For apartment owners, the next question is whether concessions begin to recede as the construction pipeline slows or become embedded in lease-up strategy for longer. For lenders, investors and property managers, the spread between asking and effective rents deserves particular attention because it can affect underwriting assumptions about revenue growth.

The national figures do not mean every rental market is weakening. They do show that in a growing number of large metros, renters have enough choices to demand something more than the price on the listing page.