U.S. apartment rents dropped for the third straight month in November, easing back from this year’s record highs as leasing demand continues to weaken, according to newly released data.
While still lofty compared to previous years, effective asking rents for new leases declined 0.59 percent nationally last month, marking the largest cut since the pandemic lockdowns in April and May 2020, real estate software and data firm RealPage found.
Rents are falling the most in tech markets and desert metros. California’s Bay Area cities of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, as well as the tech hubs of Seattle, Washington, and Austin, Texas, all saw rents drop by more than 1 percent. Among the nation’s larger cities, San Jose saw the steepest month-on-month decline of 1.7 percent as tech firms such as Roku and Twitter cut local jobs….