National apartment rents have a plus sign in front of them again. RealPage puts same-store effective asking rents up 0.9% year over year in August, and Yardi Matrix's advertised-rent series reached $1,773, up 0.4%, which Yardi describes as the first positive August in years. The catch is that roughly 1.2 million units are still in lease-up, and that pipeline, not renter demand, sets the ceiling on what most operators can charge at fall renewals.
What happened
Two trackers, same direction. RealPage's August update shows annual growth strengthening to 0.9% after turning positive in July, with monthly growth at only 0.1%; much of the annual improvement is weak year-ago months dropping out of the comparison. RealPage's occupancy held at 95.5%, flat on the month and the year, but up 90 basis points since the start of 2026.
Yardi's series, which measures advertised rents rather than same-store effective rents, has the national average at $1,773 in August, up 0.1% on the month and 0.4% on the year, the strongest annual reading in nearly a year. Yardi's report opens with advertised rents having now risen for six consecutive months as the supply wave recedes.
Supply is the story underneath. RealPage counts about 340,200 units delivered in the year ending the second quarter, the first time in roughly three years that deliveries fell below the decade average, and well off the 588,000-unit peak of late 2024. Yardi says starts and deliveries are down one third from the 2023-24 cycle highs. Demand is not fully back, though: RealPage's annual absorption of about 271,300 units trails the decade average of roughly 340,000, which RealPage attributes to net move-outs in late 2025.
The lease-up mechanism
Fewer deliveries do not lift rents right away, because units delivered at the peak of the cycle are still filling. Yardi counts roughly 1.2 million units in lease-up at the start of August, down from a 1.4 million peak in early 2025 but still about double the prior decade's average. Yardi's Paul Fiorilla told Multifamily Dive that rent growth tracks the share of stock in lease-up, and that "it's going to take probably a few quarters" for rents to recover, provided occupancy keeps improving, demand holds and supply keeps decelerating.
Lease-up buildings compete on concessions, and stabilized buildings nearby have to answer. Multifamily Dive, citing RealPage data, reports concessions on 15.8% of stabilized units nationally in July, and on 21.1% in the South. Austin led the top 50 markets with concessions on 37% of stabilized units at an average 15.2% discount, followed by San Antonio at 32.6% and Denver at 31.7%. It is not only new product: about 25% of units in 1990s-vintage buildings are offering concessions, up from 18% three years ago. That is the mechanism an operator feels: the lease-up down the street sets the effective price, and older assets discount to hold occupancy.
The regional divide
The national average hides a wide spread.
Where lease-up share is low, rents are moving. RealPage has San Francisco at 14% annual growth, San Jose at 8.7% and Oakland at 6.2%. The Midwest led all four regions at 2%, with Milwaukee at 5.1% and Chicago at 2.6%. Yardi's leaders line up: San Francisco +6.1%, New York +5.3%, Kansas City +3.0%. RealPage's second-quarter West update credits the Bay Area's run to a demand surge against minimal new supply and says the Bay Area appears poised to lead the country in 2027.
Where lease-up share is high, rents are still falling. Yardi's highest lease-up shares are Charlotte at 11.6%, Austin 10.9%, Phoenix 9.8%, Nashville 8.9%, Orlando 8.5% and Raleigh-Durham 8.1%. Those are the markets on the cut list: Yardi has Austin -2.8%, Denver -2.0%, Tampa -1.8%, Houston -1.7% and Phoenix -1.6%, and RealPage shows San Antonio down 3.7% at 93.1% occupancy with Charlotte, Tampa and Houston cutting about 2%. RealPage flags the South as the only region still posting annual rent cuts and sub-95% occupancy.
The direction is improving even where the level is negative. Yardi notes declines in Denver, Portland and Austin are shrinking, and says "the sector appears to be moving in the right direction". RealPage has Phoenix and Austin cuts narrowing to 1% to 1.4%. One caution: Yardi's occupancy read is softer than RealPage's, at 94.2% in July, down 0.5% year over year, with San Francisco the only top-30 market to post an increase and Tampa off 1.2%. Different samples and methods; price against your own submarket comps, not either national line.
There is a class split too. RealPage's West update reports Class C rents fell 2.4% year over year in the second quarter, and the spread between Class A and Class C annual rent change was 460 basis points, only slightly narrower than the South's 480 basis points. Class A inventory in the region grew 2.5% over the same period. Our read: discounted Class A product can pull residents up the ladder, which adds to the pressure RealPage already sees on Class C in vacation-driven Sun Belt metros from thinner service and hospitality worker demand.
Why it matters for property managers
The national +0.9% is not your renewal number. The two inputs that decide a fall renewal are the lease-up share and the concession rate in your submarket, and those range from low in the Bay Area, where RealPage describes essentially zero new supply, to 37% of stabilized units offering concessions in Austin. In a low-supply metro, the bigger risk is under-pricing renewals while asking rents climb. In a high-lease-up metro, a renewal increase that sends a resident shopping runs into a market where, in the worst cases such as Austin, San Antonio and Denver, roughly a third of stabilized competitors are offering concessions, and the turnover cost usually swamps the increase you were chasing. Older assets face the sharpest version of that: the Class C gap in the West is a signal that the resident you lose may not come back at your price.
What to do this week
- Bucket every fall expiration by submarket: low lease-up, high lease-up, or in between. Pull the lease-up count and concession use for the comps within a few miles, not the metro.
- In low-supply submarkets, compare in-place rent to current new-lease asking rent unit by unit. Where the gap is wide, a firmer renewal is supportable; where it is narrow, hold.
- In high-concession submarkets, lead with retention. Consider flat or modest renewals and non-rent trades such as term flexibility or an amortized credit rather than a headline cut, so the concession does not become the new base rent.
- Audit older assets against Class A lease-ups nearby. If your Class B or C rent is within a few percent of a concession-adjusted Class A rent, expect move-outs and price defensively.
- Check renewal-notice timing and any local rent-increase limits before offers go out. Rules vary by state and city; confirm with local counsel where you are unsure.
- Re-forecast fourth-quarter concession spend using July's 15.8% national and 21.1% South rates as a floor, not last year's budget.
What we're watching
Whether the lease-up count keeps falling from 1.2 million, and how fast; that is the single number that unlocks pricing in the Sun Belt. Whether occupancy follows RealPage's 90-basis-point year-to-date climb or Yardi's 0.5% annual slide. And the supply pipeline into 2027: Yardi warns that trade tensions and military conflicts could raise construction and financing costs, which would tighten future supply further and extend the runway for rent growth once the current wave clears.