New 2025 & 2026 Rent Growth Prediction (A BIG Bounce Back?)

On The Market

BiggerPockets

News, Investing, Business, Education

4.8 • 820 Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Rent growth has slowed significantly since the massive hikes of 2020-2023, but could we be close to another major rebound? A surge in multifamily supply has led many apartments to offer discounted rents, move-in and renewal concessions, and other perks to attract renters. Renters currently have the upper hand, but what happens when the supply-demand balance shifts—and less than half the usual new supply comes online? Dave is answering that question in this May 2025 rent update. We’ll walk through which cities have rising rents, which are seeing declines, multifamily vs. single-family rents, and a new (optimistic) 2025–2026 rent forecast that could change everything for landlords. Single-family rentals are already in decent demand, so what happens when those cheaper multifamily apartments reach maximum occupancy? This could be great news for landlords and real estate investors, but the general public is NOT paying attention. If rental demand stays steady but supply drops off a cliff, you could stand to benefit. We’re getting into that, and more, in this episode! In This Episode We Cover New May 2025 rent growth update and single-family vs. multifamily numbers The huge investor opportunity for 2026 as multifamily supply dries up Cities with rising rents that very few investors would have predicted An optimistic rent growth forecast (and whether Dave believes it) Surprisingly expensive markets that are seeing rents grow EVEN more And So Much More! Links from the Show Join the Future of Real Estate Investing with Fundrise Join BiggerPockets for FREE Sign Up for the On the Market Newsletter Property Manager Finder Rental Demand is Surging 3x Faster Than Homeownership—Here’s How to Catch the Wave Dave's BiggerPockets Profile Grab Dave’s Book, “Real Estate by the Numbers” Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/on-the-market-323⁠ Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Housing prices are cooling. Will rents now follow suit? Or could rent growth start picking up and
0:06.6	actually start driving cash flow potential up at the same time? Today on On the Market,
0:12.0	we're digging into the latest news and transit in the rental market that investors need to be
0:16.5	aware of.
0:25.6	Hey, everyone, it's Dave back with another episode of On the Market. We spent a lot of the last few weeks talking about housing prices, mortgage rates, the trade
0:30.3	war, and all that major headline stuff.
0:33.7	But as investors, we really need to know and stay on top of what's happening in the rental market as well.
0:39.4	And this is probably obvious, but this is where most of us as real estate investors, unless you're a flipper, are generating our revenue.
0:47.1	It also helps us understand and helps us make decisions about how to manage our existing portfolio.
0:53.6	And it also tells us what
0:55.0	deals we should be buying because rent, as least as I see it, is one of the big upsides right now
1:01.1	because if prices start to flatten and rent grows, that means better cash flow potential.
1:07.0	So we really need to understand where rent is today and where it might be going.
1:12.3	And so today we're going to do that.
1:14.2	We're going to talk about everything rent.
1:17.7	We'll talk about sort of the big trends that are going on and where we stand today.
1:22.9	We'll talk about the differences between single family rentals and commercial real estate rents because they're super different right now and they might move in different directions
1:26.4	going forward.
1:27.4	We'll talk about some regional trends and then, of course, we'll talk about forecasts looking forward.
1:32.7	Let's get into it.
1:34.0	All right. First things first. Let's just talk about what's going on. Big picture here.
1:38.1	What's happening with national rent growth. This will probably not come as a surprise to many of you,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 26 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BiggerPockets, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BiggerPockets and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.