Asking Rents Remained High in August, but Some Landlords Are Now Offering Concessions

Redfin reported on Tuesday (9-12-23) that the median US asking rent was $2,052 in August, just $2 below the record high set a year earlier. The August median rent is up 0.7% from July, when the typical asking rent was $2,038.

Redfin notes that while asking rents are near their all-time high, tenants in some parts of the country are now finding deals. With vacancies on the rise, some landlords are offering one-time discounts to attract renters while maintaining high asking rent on paper. This means that rents are effectively coming down in certain parts of the US, but those declines are not showing up in asking-rent data.

A regional breakdown shows that the median asking rent in the West declined 1.1% year-over-year to $2,469 in August. In the South, asking rent fell 0.3% to $1,673—the first decline since 2020. On the other hand, in the Midwest, asking rents climbed 4.6% year-over-year to a record high $1,534, while in the Northeast, they increased 1.2% to $2,509.