Property Management News
Despite a recent softening in rents for new leases and a cooling construction pipeline, rental housing in the US remains unaffordable for households across the income spectrum, according to America’s Rental Housing 2026, a new report released today by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. After record rent increases during the pandemic, national rent growth hovered near zero from mid-2023 into 2025. By the fourth quarter of 2025, asking rents for professionally managed apartments declined 0.6 percent year over year, with the majority of large markets seeing either small declines or only modest growth. Vacancy rates ticked up to 5.2 percent, matching their level a... Read more
KEY TAKEAWYS Utility costs fell from 11–12% of multifamily rent in the mid-2000s to 8.8% by 2020. US shale boom and lower natural gas prices reduced utility...
Across the United States, the gap between the cheapest and most expensive cities in a single state has become a defining feature of the rental landscape, not an...
Even New York City’s affordable housing is getting too expensive for many low-income tenants, leading to a spike in eviction filings, a new report...
The U.S. rental market has officially tipped in favor of tenants and turned renter-friendly as the vacancy rate has climbed to 7.6% across the 50 largest...
At the first sign of vacancy troubles, apartment operators often react by running a community-wide rent special. Here’s the problem: Broad specials, where every unit gets the same discount, are risky. They can make higher-demand units lease faster at unnecessarily lower rent prices, while struggling units remain vacant longer—reversing the intended effect of the special. In a previous article, we compared community specials vs. floorplan rent specials, and it was clear that the latter was the better option for stabilized communities where demand tends to be uneven between varying layouts. Unlike broad discounts like community specials, floorplan rent specials generate more demand... Read more
While early 2026 brought lower monthly housing costs and higher vacancy rates to many major metros, renters in a select few affordable, job-packed hubs are seeing...
There’s little sign yet that rent concessions are on their way out. Instead, January data showed they have reached their highest monthly level since mid-2014 –...
KEY POINTS The national median rent in January was $1,353, a drop of 1.4% compared with one year ago. The national vacancy rate was 7.3% in January, a record high on...
“So… what’s the real rent????” This question is being asked at apartment communities all across the nation, right now. Why? Because a prospect...
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