The median asking rent across the 50 largest U.S. metro areas slipped to $1,699 in August, down 0.9% from a year earlier, according to Realtor.com’s latest monthly rental report. That decline marks the 37th consecutive month rents have fallen on an annual basis, a streak now well into its fourth year. At the same time, landlords are offering more than a lower price to fill empty units: 43.5% of studio, one- and two-bedroom listings across those metros carried some kind of concession in August, up from 40.4% a year earlier.
A Rental Market Now Three Years Into Its Slide
Every unit size tracked in the report posted an annual decline in August. Two-bedroom rents fell 0.9% to $1,896, one-bedroom rents dropped 0.8% to $1,586, and studio rents fell 1.2% to $1,436. The one- and two-bedroom categories have each logged 39 straight months of year-over-year declines, two months longer than the overall streak, while studios have fallen for 36 consecutive months.
The current median is $65, or 3.7%, below the market’s summer 2022 peak, when pandemic-era demand and thin supply pushed rents to their highest point on record. It remains $227, or 15.4%, above where rent stood in August 2019, a reminder that the recent relief has not undone years of prior increases. Realtor.com’s research team points to a wave of multifamily construction that added new supply faster than renter demand grew as the main driver behind the extended slide.
That pattern traces back to the apartment-building boom that began during the pandemic, when soaring rents made new construction unusually profitable across most large metros. That expanded pipeline has since caught up with, and in many metros surpassed, renter demand, and the resulting surplus of newly delivered units has kept pushing asking rents lower even as population and household formation keep growing nationally. Government data confirms how large that pipeline got: the Census Bureau’s New Residential Construction report counted 591,700 completed apartments in buildings of five units or more in 2024, and put the August 2026 completion rate for that category at 302,000, a sign the wave has already delivered its surplus.
Free relief finder: Property-tax freezes, exemptions and utility help for older homeowners usually only apply after someone asks. See what to look for with the free relief finder.
Concessions Climb to 43.5% of Listings
Beyond the headline rent figure, the more consequential shift for many renters may be in concessions. In August, 43.5% of studio, one- and two-bedroom listings across the 50 largest metros offered some form of concession, such as a waived application fee, a rent credit or a period of free rent, up 3.1 percentage points from 40.4% a year earlier. A period of free rent specifically was offered on 30.6% of those listings, though the report found fewer than 1% of listings managed by institutional landlords included a no-deposit concession, a reminder that a free-rent offer does not necessarily come with flexibility on the upfront deposit needed to move in.
“Renters are entering the fall with more choices and more negotiating power than they had at the height of the rental market,” said Jiayi Xu, senior economist at Realtor.com, in the report. Xu said the combination of continued annual declines, new supply and a growing share of listings with concessions is creating more room for renters to negotiate better terms, even as monthly rents are expected to follow their usual seasonal dip heading into fall.
Vacancy, More Than Softness, Is Driving the Give-Backs
The report’s data was paired with a separate survey of independent landlords conducted by Avail, part of the Realtor.com network, which found that concessions are not an automatic response to a soft market overall. Instead, high vacancy and weak renter demand were the strongest triggers for landlords to act: among owners facing those conditions, 33.3% actively offered concessions, 25.9% considered them and 24.1% chose to lower the advertised rent outright instead. That vacancy pressure shows up in the government’s own numbers, too: the Census Bureau’s second-quarter 2026 Housing Vacancies and Homeownership survey put the national rental vacancy rate at 7.3%, up from 7.0% a year earlier and the highest second-quarter rate since 2020.
Landlords who did offer or consider concessions favored certain incentives over others. Waived or reduced fees were the most common choice, at 37.9%, followed by upgraded amenities at 30.7% and a period of free rent at 25.0%. Only 6.4% turned to gift cards or moving assistance. One line held firm regardless of vacancy pressure: 65.7% of landlords said they would not waive a security deposit, even to fill an empty unit faster.
A Broader Shift in How Landlords Are Managing Costs
The willingness to deal on fees and amenities rather than base rent lines up with how independent landlords describe managing their properties more broadly. A separate 2026 survey of more than 4,000 independent landlords by Avail found that 74.4% saw their property ownership costs rise over the past year, driven mainly by taxes and insurance, yet only 44.3% of those who raised rent pointed to those costs as the reason. About 18.0% of landlords in that survey said they hold to a strict no-rent-increase policy regardless of cost pressure, prioritizing a reliable, paying tenant over a marginal rate hike.
That caution helps explain why concessions, rather than outright rent cuts, have become the preferred tool nationally: they let a landlord ease a listing’s terms without resetting the advertised price that anchors future increases. It also means the size of the give-back can vary widely by building and by market, since a waived fee is worth far less to a household’s monthly budget than a full month of free rent.
What the Numbers Signal for Renters Heading Into Fall
Realtor.com’s 2026 Housing Market Forecast Midyear Update projects rents will decline 1.2% for the full year, a projection the company says depends on new rental supply continuing to outpace demand through the fourth quarter. Concession rates vary sharply by metro: five metros, including Denver and Austin, each had more than two-thirds of listings offering some concession in August, while markets such as San Jose and San Francisco saw rents rise and concessions pull back as local demand strengthened. The softening hasn’t fully reached the government’s own inflation gauge: the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index for August 2026 put the shelter index up 3.0% over the prior year, with its rent component still rising 0.2% for the month, since CPI rent tracks existing leases rather than asking rents on vacant units.
For a household weighing whether to renew a lease or negotiate for the first time, the report’s own numbers point to where the leverage currently sits: a rental market where the median asking rent has now fallen for 37 straight annual comparisons, and where a concession is roughly four percentage points more common than it was a year ago.
The Renewal Date Most Homeowners Never Write Down
Falling rents and rising concessions are easing pressure for people who lease, but homeowners face a cost structure that does not move with the rental market. Property tax bills, utility rates and home-repair costs arrive on their own schedule, and the relief programs meant to offset them typically require a renewal, not a one-time application, to keep working.
The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit collects heating, cooling and home-repair help alongside an application log and renewal calendar for tracking each filing.
Read the 5 kinds of property-tax relief in The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit.
AI-assisted research and drafting; reviewed by an editor.
