A new report from Berkadia shows how concerns about slowing apartment demand and falling apartment rental rate growth is manifesting in current concession and lease renewal dynamics.

Owners and operators had accommodated renters because of pandemic economic pressures, peaking at 6.3% in Q3 of 2021. But even as they fell, they remained higher than normal. By the end of 2022, they were still at 4.5%, significantly higher than the pre-pandemic five-year average of 3.4%. That leaves open a question of whether this is a wave that will settle into older patterns or in part a reaction to the swift rise of rents and which has become a mechanism that lets them seem higher than they actually are.

There has been considerable variation by geography. "Regionally, markets in the Northeast were offering more concessions compared to others, peaking at 7.6% in 2021," the report said. "Meanwhile, concessions in the South remained the lowest due to positive net in-migrations to southern markets such as Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin." Although the exact numbers don't appear, a graph in the report shows a level that looks about 5.5% as the peak in the South and that fell to about 5% or possibly a bit below.