For decades, summer was the undisputed high season for movers
The Seasons of Renting Are Changing
For decades, summer was the undisputed high season for movers. Families planned relocations around school schedules, fair weather made hauling boxes easier, and holiday spending didn’t yet compete with security deposits. Apartment rents predictably rose each spring and summer, and cooled in the fall as leasing activity tapered off.
That rhythm has begun to fade. According to Apartment List’s national rent data, rents have declined each month since August—a cooling period that used to begin a month later. Historically, May marked the high point of rent growth.
But beginning in 2023, the market’s peak arrived in March. The once-orderly cycle of summer rent surges followed by autumn slowdowns has unraveled amid a flood of new apartment construction and shifting migration habits.
Apartment List Senior Research Associate Rob Warnock wrote that since 2022, rental activity has become more evenly spread across the calendar. Because demand is now distributed over more months, rent hikes have lost momentum. Annual declines have outpaced annual gains as landlords find less concentrated demand to push prices higher.
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During the years before the pandemic, from 2017 through 2019, peak rent growth reached about 1% in May, a stretch that allowed for seven months of rent increases from February to August. By contrast, from 2023 through 2025, the growth window has narrowed to about six months, topping out at just 0.6% in March.
Several factors contributed to the shift. The pandemic disrupted moving timelines, pushing some households to relocate earlier or later than usual and stretching the typical 12‑month renewal cycle. Landlords then sought to smooth operations by spreading out lease expirations—sometimes offering discounts for longer lease terms to avoid large clusters of vacancies.
At the same time, a wave of apartment construction beginning in 2022 upended the balance of supply and demand. Fueled by demographic changes, investor capital, and an era of inexpensive financing, the new supply tilted power toward renters.
Remote work and better online search tools further enabled renters to move when convenient rather than in traditional “on” seasons, increasing move‑ins between January and May compared to before 2020.
As construction slows, some landlords may regain modest bargaining power and cushion price declines over the winter. Still, remote work and more flexible management approaches have fundamentally changed the landscape.
Apartment operators increasingly value evenly spaced lease renewals, even if that means the summer peak never returns to its former level.
Source: GlobeSt.
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