National rent growth is close to nothing right now — 0.9% year over year in same-store effective asking rents in August 2026, and 0.4% on advertised asking rents, at a $1,773 national average. When the market is flat, a renewal increase stops being a rounding error you push through and becomes a bet: you are wagering a small amount of certain money against the chance the resident leaves. This guide is a method for sizing that bet on your own numbers. It is general information for operators, not legal or financial advice — renewal notice periods, increase caps, and disclosure requirements vary by state, and cities and counties add their own rules, so confirm anything specific with local counsel before you send an offer.
What a turnover actually costs
Most renewal decisions go wrong because the cost of the alternative never gets priced. The alternative to a renewal is a turn, and a turn is four bills that land in four different places in your P&L.
Published estimates land in the low four figures. The National Apartment Association, writing in 2016, pegged per-unit turnover at $1,000 to $5,000 depending on upgrades, and Zego's 2026 report cites its own earlier research putting a single turn at roughly $4,000.
Use a published figure as a sanity check, not as your input. Build your own from the line items, because the mix tells you which lever to pull.
The figures below are an illustration built on round numbers, not a benchmark and not advice about any specific property. Substitute your own.
| Line item | How to get your number | Illustration |
|---|---|---|
| Vacancy loss | Trailing-12 average days vacant per turn x daily rent | 30 days x $60 = $1,800 |
| Make-ready | Trailing-12 average turn cost per unit from your work orders | $900 |
| Leasing and marketing | Advertising, screening, and any leasing fee or commission | $600 |
| Concession to fill | Whatever you are actually giving new leases, in dollars | Half month = $900 |
| Total | $4,200 |
Two things fall out of that table. Vacancy loss is usually the biggest line, and you control it with scheduling rather than spending. The concession line moves with the market — in a soft submarket it grows, which makes every renewal you save worth more.
The breakeven math, worked
Here is the whole method in one sentence: an increase is worth taking only if the annual dollars it earns exceed the turn cost multiplied by the extra chance it causes a move-out.
Rearranged, that gives you a number you can actually use. Divide the annual gain from the increase by your all-in turn cost, and you get the breakeven added move-out risk — the point past which the increase loses money.
Round the $1,773 national average to $1,800 a month for easy arithmetic, and carry the $4,200 turn cost from the table above. Again: illustration only.
| Monthly increase | Annual gain | As % of $1,800 rent | Breakeven added move-out risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| $25 | $300 | 1.4% | 7 points |
| $50 | $600 | 2.8% | 14 points |
| $75 | $900 | 4.2% | 21 points |
| $100 | $1,200 | 5.6% | 29 points |
| $150 | $1,800 | 8.3% | 43 points |
Read the last column as a question you have to answer honestly: does this increase raise the odds of a move-out by more than that? A $50 bump needs to add less than 14 points of risk to pay. A $150 bump needs to stay under 43 points — a much harder claim, because $150 on $1,800 lands in the zone where renters start walking. Zego's renter survey found the average tolerance point sits at an 8% increase, and that any increase of roughly $90 to $150 can trigger reconsideration regardless of the percentage, because residents budget in dollars.
Note what the math does not say. It does not say hold rent flat; a small increase clears a low bar. The lesson is that the last $50 of a big increase is the expensive part — it carries most of the added risk and earns no more than the first $50.
Read your own submarket, and where to get the numbers free
The national figure is context, not an input. Three local readings actually change the offer:
- Asking rent on genuinely comparable vacant units — same bedroom count, similar square footage and vintage, within a short drive. Pull the listings yourself, and record effective rent after concessions, not the headline.
- How common concessions are — count how many comparable listings advertise free weeks, waived fees, or gift cards. If most of them do, your practical ceiling is below the advertised numbers.
- Lease-up supply nearby — a new property leasing up within a mile is a concession machine competing directly for your residents. Nationally there are still about 1.2 million units in lease-up, down from a 1.4 million peak in early 2025, distributed very unevenly — see our August read on rents, concessions, and lease-up by market.
Free sources worth bookmarking: the Census Bureau's Housing Vacancy Survey, which put the national rental vacancy rate at 7.3% in the second quarter of 2026 and publishes free detail by state and metro area; and Apartment List's monthly national rent report, which had the national median at $1,390 in August 2026, down 0.8% year over year, with its vacancy index at 7.1% and makes its estimates downloadable. RealPage's monthly update carries occupancy, which held at 95.5% in August. None of these replaces walking your own comps, but they tell you whether your read is drifting.
Segment residents before you set a number
One increase across the whole rent roll is a pricing decision you have not made yet. Segment on two things you already have in the ledger, and only on those:
- Payment history — on-time months over the current lease term, count of returned payments, count of late fees assessed.
- Length of stay — months in the unit, and how many renewals they have already accepted.
A resident who has paid on time for three years is the most valuable inventory you own: no vacancy loss, a lighter make-ready, no leasing cost, no concession. That person should see your smallest increase, not your average one. The math will tolerate more on a first-term account with a weak payment record — though if payment history is the real issue, renewal pricing is the wrong tool for it.
Two guardrails. Write the segmentation rule down before you look at any names, apply it to every resident on the same terms, and keep the file. And segment only on documented account behavior and tenancy length — never on any protected characteristic or on any stand-in for one. Fair housing rules can reach renewal pricing, not just leasing, and state and local law often reaches further than federal, so have counsel review your written policy.
Timing: why 60 to 90 days out is worth money
Send the offer 90 days before expiration when your notice rules allow it, and no later than 60. The offer only has value while the resident has not started shopping. Once they have toured two places and priced a mover, you are negotiating against a concession you cannot see.
Certainty is what you are trading, and it is worth money on both sides. You stop pre-leasing the unit, stop holding make-ready budget against it, and stop guessing at next quarter's occupancy. They avoid a deposit, a truck, and time off work. Make the trade visible: put an expiration date on the offer, and make the number a little better for an early yes.
Ladder the term. A longer lease is worth a smaller increase because you are buying more months of certainty — as an illustration on the same $1,800 unit: $50 for 12 months, $35 for 18, $25 for 24. Watch which month the new term expires into; rolling a lease into your slowest leasing month quietly raises the cost of the next turn.
When not to raise, and what to do when they counter
Do not send an increase at all when:
- There are open habitability or repair work orders on the unit. Fix first, price second.
- The resident is already at or above the effective rent on comparable vacant units after concessions. You would be inviting a shopping trip you lose.
- Several nearby units are in lease-up and giving away weeks of free rent.
- The unit is due for a capital scope you would rather schedule than have forced on you by a move-out.
- The unit is rent-regulated, or covered by a subsidy contract or an affordability agreement, where the increase process and ceiling are set by rule. Confirm the procedure with counsel before you calculate anything.
When the resident counters, the reflex is to split the difference on rent. Don't lead there — a rent reduction is permanent and compounds into every future renewal. Work in this order:
- Ask what number and what term work. Most counters are a budget statement, not a negotiation tactic — 65% of renters say they intend to renew, and another 24% are undecided. The undecided group is where offers get won.
- Trade term for price. Meet them lower on the monthly number in exchange for 18 or 24 months.
- Trade non-rent value. Parking, storage, an appliance, a carpet clean, a paint refresh. These cost you once and do not reset your rent roll.
- Use a one-time credit, not a rent cut. A single month's credit costs less than a permanent $40 reduction over a long tenancy, and it keeps your renewal base intact.
- Take flat, and say so. A flat renewal from a paying resident beats a $4,200 turn every time the math is close.
Bottom line
Run the number before you send the offer: annual gain divided by all-in turn cost equals the move-out risk you can afford to add. In a market where rent growth is under 1% and retention has slipped from 60% in 2024 to 57%, that arithmetic will point you toward smaller increases sent earlier to residents you already know pay on time. Every dollar figure above is an illustration meant to be replaced with your own trailing-12 numbers, not a benchmark and not advice about any specific property. And because renewal notice periods, increase caps, and rent regulation differ by state and by locality — and change — have local counsel confirm your notice timing and your written renewal policy before you use them.