Rental Housing Weekly Briefing: August 24–28, 2026

Title slide with modern apartment building: Rental Housing Weekly Briefing, July 20-24, 2026, Chandan Economics.

This week’s Rental Housing Weekly Briefing examines Chandan Economics’ latest Multifamily Rent Growth Update, where annual and short-term rent growth both accelerated in July and a larger share of US metro areas recorded rising rents, alongside new Census data showing that multifamily housing starts remained volatile even as the underlying development trend held relatively firm.

LAST WEEK in RENTAL HOUSING

Multifamily Rent Growth Update

National multifamily rent growth accelerated again in July, with rents rising 1.8% year-over-year, up from 1.5% in June and 1.2% in May. The latest reading marks the fastest annual pace since May 2025 and extends a four-month run of accelerating growth.
Short-term momentum strengthened more sharply. Annualized month-over-month rent growth reached 4.0%, the strongest pace since March 2023. The recent improvement is now showing up in both monthly and annual measures, pointing to a market that is moving beyond stabilization and into modest reacceleration.
Market breadth continued to improve. In July, 73.4% of US metro areas recorded month-over-month rent gains, while 88.8% posted year-over-year increases. Both measures reached their highest levels since September 2025, suggesting the improvement is becoming more geographically widespread.
Metro performance remains uneven, but several lagging Sun Belt markets are beginning to show better near-term momentum. Austin, Raleigh, Phoenix, Tampa, Denver, and Charlotte all remained weak on an annual basis but posted positive monthly rent growth in July, suggesting some of the markets hit hardest by recent supply pressures are beginning to stabilize.

Multifamily Housing Starts

Multifamily housing starts remained volatile in July. Starts in buildings with five or more units fell to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 421,000 units, down from 499,000 in June and 453,000 one year earlier.
Monthly volatility continues to obscure a somewhat firmer underlying trend. Through the first seven months of 2026, multifamily starts averaged roughly 437,000 units, compared with about 389,000 over the same period in 2025.
The trailing 12-month average stood at approximately 423,000 units in July, remaining well above the levels seen through much of 2024 and early 2025 despite easing slightly from June.
The latest data suggest the development pipeline is no longer contracting at the pace seen earlier in the cycle. However, the month-to-month swings remain substantial, and starts are still well below the elevated levels reached during the 2022–23 construction boom.