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February Multifamily Update: The Return of Normal Seasonality
The big three data providers show apartment rents regaining some momentum in early 2026
Jay Parsons
February 19, 2026
Today’s edition sponsored by: JPI, Madera Residential, X-Caliber, Hawthorne Residential Partners, Authentic and Mason Joseph.
It’s not the big rebound everyone is waiting for, but it’s a start.
The big three apartment data providers all reported positive month-over-month rent growth in January. It’s no resurgence, by any means. But it’s a start.
CoStar wrote: “U.S. apartment rents grew [0.2%] in January… This uptick marks a continuation of positive monthly rent change that began in December 2025. Prior to December, the monthly trend was flat or negative for five consecutive months.”
RealPage: “Effective asking rents increased in January, for the first time in seven months. U.S. prices climbed 0.2% over December rates, marking a change in performance after a long period of decline.”
Yardi: “U.S. multifamily advertised rents rose $3 in January to $1,741 after five consecutive months of declines.”
Another way to say it: After an abnormally weak summer and fall, apartment rent movement looks more seasonally normal this winter.
Occupancy rates largely held steady over the winter, according to both Yardi and RealPage. And while CoStar shows higher vacancy, their data shows occupancy rates IMPROVED in higher-tier properties (4 and 5 star, in their vernacular) while further declining in lower-tier properties, suggesting a continued “flight to quality” among renters, as well as potentially more demand-side challenges in the those units as well.
The positive momentum spurred a modest upward forecast revision from CoStar, which says it now expects positive rent growth in Q1’26 after previously anticipating cuts.
That’s good news, but of course, what matters more is what happens from here, as the critical spring leasing nears. Furthermore, it’s worth a reminder that 2025 got off to a solid start before sputtering in the second half of the year. Apartment operators are widely expecting (hoping for?) the inverse this year, with better growth expected in 2H’26 as supply pressures continue to ease. (This was a theme discussed in REITs’ earnings calls earlier this month, as well, which I recapped here.)
But 2026 won’t be without its speed bumps, thanks to high completions in 2025 still leasing up this year, as well as soft job growth and low consumer confidence.
Yardi: “Supply-side pressure on rents is likely to persist—particularly in Sun Belt markets—unless demand strengthens meaningfully. However, the demand outlook remains uncertain. According to the Conference Board’s latest report, consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest level in more than a decade—below even pandemic-era performance. If households increasingly view the economy as moving in the wrong direction, renter household formation is likely to slow.”
And CoStar: “While many markets have moved past peak supply, a substantial, though easing, inventory overhang continues to weigh on rent growth across the country.”
Regional Breakdowns
It remains a familiar story: San Francisco and New York continue to see strong growth, while the Midwest remains solid, and higher-supplied markets lag (though some are seeing upward momentum).
CoStar: “Markets with the highest levels of new construction are seeing the weakest rent performance, while more supply-constrained metros — particularly in the Midwest and select coastal areas — continue to outperform. In select markets, however, falling employment and softening demand may also be contributing to weaker rent growth.”
Those “select markets” include Boston and Washington, DC, which started strong in 2025 but dropped off due to weakening demand. Los Angeles also remains challenged, which we discussed at length in our recent recap of apartment REITs’ earnings calls.
RealPage noted that rent cuts in the South and the West “are not quite as bad as they were just a few months ago.” That includes momentum in key markets like Dallas and Atlanta, which were singled out as green shoot markets by some of the apartment REITs.
Other Highlights
RealPage shows five MSAs now topping 3.5% rent growth year-over-year: San Francisco, San Jose, New York, Virginia Beach and Chicago. CoStar includes Cincinnati in its top five, with New York ranking sixth. Yardi’s rankings put Minneapolis and Kansas City in the top five.
The five weakest markets for rent cuts, according to both, RealPage and CoStar, remain Austin, Denver, San Antonio, Phoenix and Tampa. Yardi puts Las Vegas in its bottom five.
For month-over-month in January, CoStar showed rent gains in 42 of the 50 largest MSAs. The biggest laggards were Oklahoma City, Louisville and Memphis.
Radix reported “a resilient start to 2026” in its economic update.
While CoStar, RealPage and Yardi all reported rent momentum in January, ApartmentList reported continued backtracking.
Newmark reported that apartment sales increased 4.5% in 2025, while “debt originations rose 37% year over year as lending conditions improved.”
CBRE’s latest cap rate survey shows investors are more bullish on multifamily than any other CRE sector over the next 10 years. It also shows only a tiny share of investors expect multifamily cap rates to increase over the next six months, while about 40% expect cap rate compression.
RealPage reported “notable improvement” in student housing pre-leasing for the fall 2026 semester.
Cushman & Wakefield’s latest senior housing report showed “absorption outpaced supply growth by 4.8 to 1 in 2025” and “20 straight quarters of stabilized occupancy growth, reaching 90% in the fourth quarter of 2025, the highest level since 2017.”
— My Latest Posts on LinkedIn —
Here are some recent posts if you missed them:
Flight to quality, not a flight to affordability. Apartment demand has shifted up market to pricier units.
Where are rents for NEW apartments falling most? Here’s the top 15.
Here’s a great chart showing how the renting stage of life is elongating.
Equity Residential’s CEO says Los Angeles gives him “continuing anxiety,” and implied EQR may reduce its presence there over time.
Maybe the mantra should have been “survive THROUGH 2025” instead of “survive ‘til 2025.”
AvalonBay sold a rent controlled, 50+ year-old apartment property in San Francisco (which they said also need heavy CapEx work) for a 5.1% cap rate.
Here are the fastest-growing submarkets (in terms of new apartment supply) over the past five years.
What markets are showing some renewed momentum in apartment rents?
Apartment rent movement this winter looks suddenly normal, returning to normal seasonal patterns after unusual weak summer and fall seasons.
Homebuilders are pitching a rent-to-own concept to the White House. For that to work, we need to understand why rent-to-own hasn’t worked well historically.
Most policymakers (and most Americans, too) probably have no idea that the U.S. LOST more than 1 million single-family rental homes over the past decade.
Camden is looking to exit California and re-invest more in the Sun Belt.
Here are my takeaways from NMHC’s Annual Meeting.
Who will be the buyer (at scale) of older vintage apartments in weak submarkets? There isn’t an obvious answer, but that could become a big storyline soon.
Here are some takeaways, open questions and implications from President Trump’s executive order on institutional single-family investors.
— Now Spinning on The Rent Roll Podcast —
For 2025, The Rent Roll with Jay Parsons podcast ranked in Spotify’s top 2% of podcasts for minutes played and in the top 1% for most shared shows. Additionally, The Rent Roll continues to frequently rank on Apple’s charts for investing-themed podcasts, and was recently ranked as the third-best podcast in all commercial real estate (and #1 in housing) by the readers of CRE Daily!
Thank you to everyone who’s made The Rent Roll part of your weekly routine! New episodes are released every Thursday morning.
Episode 72: Debacle: NYC Rent Stabilized Apartments with New York Apartment Association’s Kenny Burgos
Episode 71: 7 Takeaways from Apartment REIT Calls with Bank of America’s Jana Galan
Episode 70: 5 Takeaways from NMHC Annual Meeting with Northmarq’s Jeff Weidell
Episode 69: Where’s All the Distress? with Benefit Street Partners’ Michael Comparato
Episode 68: Q1’26 Multifamily Update and Outlook with RealPage’s Carl Whitaker
Episode 67: Top 10 Myths About Institutional Investors in Housing with Baruch College’s Joshua Coven.
Episode 66: Q1'26 SFR/BTR Update and Outlook with NexMetro’s Josh Hartmann
Episode 65: 15 Predictions for Apartments and SFR in 2026 with JBREC’s John Burns
