Calculated Risk · Housing & Cities
TIER 4 Wed, 4 Mar 2026 16:28:02 +0000
Every month I review rents and vacancy rates. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ | | ---|---|--- | | | Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more --- Sponsor #### Lock in Your Bonus Shares Before The Clock Strikes Midnight Did you know Disney Princess alone has generated over $45B in global revenue?! Now, Elf Labs' leadership team ($6B+ in licensing deals in their careers) orchestrated a 10-year legal effort securing rights to legendary character IP like Cinderella and Snow White. They're bringing them to life through multi-patented immersive technology across entertainment, gaming, and consumer products -- a market estimated at over $2 trillion. Their private round is over 96% full, and the company just reserved their Nasdaq ticker: $ELFS. ##### Lock in your shares before Midnight tonight. Disclosure: This is a paid advertisement for Elf Labs' Regulation CF offering. Please read the offering circular at elflabs.com Timelines are subject to change. Listing on the NASDAQ is contingent upon necessary approvals, and reserving a ticker symbol does not guarantee a company's public listing. * * * # Asking Rents Continue to Decline Year-over-year | | CalculatedRisk by Bill McBride --- | Mar 4| | | ∙| | Preview ---|---|--- | --- --- | | | --- | | --- | | --- | | --- | | READ IN APP --- Every month I review rents and vacancy rates. Back in 2020 and 2021, we saw a surge in household formation, mostly related to roommates splitting up (spending too much time together!). This led to a surge in rents (heavy demand), and rising rents led to a pickup in rental housing starts. There were significant supply chain delays for housing construction, and these unit that were started in 2021, didn't come to market until the 2023 through 2025 period, and especially in 2024. See: 1.600 million Total Housing Completions in 2025 including Manufactured Homes Of course the 2021 surge in household formation was just pulling demand forward, and with more units coming on the market, and less household formation, rents have been soft for the last 3 years. With fewer rental units coming on the market in 2026, it was possible vacancy rates would decline and rents might increase more than the previous 3 years. However, recent immigration policy will likely put downward pressure on rents this year since deportations have increased and legal immigration has decreased. So 2026 will likely be another year of soft rents. First, a survey of data … ### Apartment List: Asking Rent Growth -1.5% Year-over-year From ApartmentList.com: Apartment List National Rent Report **Rents up 0.2% month-over-month, down 1.5% year-over-year** > * _The national median rent increased by 0.2% in February, and now stands at $1,357. This marks the first monthly increase since last July, as the market begins to pull out of its off-season pricing dip._ > > * _**Rent prices nationally are down 1.5% compared to one year ago**. Year-over-year rent growth has been slightly negative for well over two years, and the national median rent has now fallen from its 2022 peak by a total of 5.9%._ > > | | > ---|---|--- > > * _**The national multifamily vacancy rate ticked up to 7.4% this month, a record high for our index going back to 2017.** We're past the peak of a multifamily construction surge, but a healthy supply of new units are still hitting the market and colliding with sluggish demand, causing vacancies to continue trending up._ > > | | > ---|---|--- > > **The following content is for paid subscribers only. Thanks to all paid subscribers!** CalculatedRisk Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber... Upgrade to paid ## Keep reading with a 7-day free trial Subscribe to CalculatedRisk Newsletter to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives. Start trial ### A subscription gets you: | Subscriber-only posts and full archive ---|--- | Post comments and join the community --- | | | Like --- | | Comment --- | | Restack --- (C) 2026 CalculatedRisk Email: dive_hike@yahoo.com, 548 Market Street PMB 72296 San Francisco, CA 94104 Unsubscribe