U.S. apartment rents slipped slightly in September 2026, interrupting a nine-month stretch of flat to rising monthly performance. According to CoStar Group’s Apartments.com, the national average rent eased 0.08% to $1,752, down just $1 from August’s upwardly revised average of $1,753. The modest decline came after a period of flat to negative monthly readings in the second half of 2025 and early 2026, underscoring the continued push and pull between demand and elevated new supply.
On a year-over-year basis, however, rent growth continued to firm. Annual rent gains accelerated to 1.5% in September 2026, up from 1.3% in August and meaningfully stronger than the 1.0% pace recorded a year earlier. This improvement in annual growth suggests that, despite a soft spot in monthly data, the broader trend in asking rents has gradually strengthened over the past 12 months.
The early fall leasing season is typically a slower period for apartment demand, and this year’s marginal monthly pullback aligns with that seasonal pattern. Even so, the 0.08% month-over-month decline was noticeably milder than the 0.2% drops reported in both September 2024 and September 2025. That comparison points to a less severe autumn correction in 2026 and may indicate that pricing conditions are becoming somewhat more resilient than in the prior two years.
While the national rent trend shows gradual improvement on an annual basis, the report notes that elevated supply remains a constraint on pricing power. New deliveries continue to weigh on landlords’ ability to push rents more aggressively, tempering how quickly annual growth can reaccelerate. This dynamic is particularly relevant in markets that have seen a heavy construction pipeline over the past several years, where competition for tenants remains intense.
Regionally, performance was broadly weaker in September, with rent growth described as uniformly down across major regions. The Mountain region experienced the sharpest monthly decline, with average rents falling 0.3% during the month, according to Apartments.com. That deeper pullback highlights how some higher-supply or recently outperformed areas are now seeing more pronounced pricing pressure relative to the national average.
