Following typical season rent cuts to close out 2024, apartment rents grew at nearly a normal rate in January. Rent growth remained below long-term norms, but the marginal growth signaled that the most severe rent cuts are behind us, according to a RealPage report.
Market rate apartment rents grew 0.16% in January, slightly below the long-term norm for January of 0.24% growth between 2015 and 2024. The eight basis point change is within a rounding difference, which suggests rent change will continue to look more regular by historical standards this year, said the report.
Two U.S. regions contributed stronger than long-term average rent growth, both of which have lower supply. Rents in the Midwest grew by 0.31% and in the Northeast grew by 0.24%. Detroit, Chicago and Kansas City continued to report the highest apartment rent growth among large markets, all ranging from 3.5% to 4% growth for the year ending in January 2025.
Recommended For You
In the West, January 2025 rent growth registered at 0.11%, below its long-term norm of 0.28%. Rent grew 0.12% in the supply-heavy South, which is half its long-term average of 0.24%. Austin posted the deepest cuts nationally once again by 7.2%, and neighboring San Antonio saw rents fall 4.4% in January.
The Midwest and Northeast regions also posted the highest rent growth manually at 2.9% and 2.7% respectively. The West had negligible annual rent growth of 0.2% and the 0.8% gain in the South continued to fall below long-term norms, the report found.
Overall annual rents in professionally managed, with market-rate apartments growing 0.6% for the year ending January 2025.
In contrast to seasonal norms, apartment occupancy increased marginally month-over-month in January by 10 bps. US apartment occupancy averaged 94.9% last month, which is consistent with historical norms.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Kristen Smithberg
Kristen Smithberg is a Colorado-based freelance writer who covers commercial real estate, insurance, benefits and retirement topics for BenefitsPRO and other industry publications.
