Rent prices have been climbing across the country, but landlords are still offering plenty of sweeteners to get people to sign leases. According to recent Zillow Research, the typical asking rent hit $1,965 in June, up about 2.2% from a year earlier. What's interesting is that nearly 40 percent of rental listings came with some kind of concession, whether that's a free month's rent, waived fees, or free parking. This tells me that even though rents are going up, property managers don't have complete pricing power yet.
The reason we're seeing this mixed picture comes down to supply and demand. Over the past few years, a lot of new apartment buildings have come online, which gives renters more choices than they've had in a while. At the same time, buying a home remains expensive, so people are staying in rentals longer. That creates enough demand to keep apartments filling up, but also enough new units sitting around to keep concessions competitive.
The parts of the country that invested heavily in building new apartments are seeing the real payoff for renters. Cities like Charlotte, Denver, and Dallas have the highest concession rates because there's simply so much new inventory competing for tenants. In some cases like Austin and Denver, rents have actually declined over the past year. The flip side is clear too: markets where development has been limited are experiencing faster rent growth with fewer deals available.
San Francisco stands out as the tightest market in the nation right now, according to Zillow's data. Rents there have jumped 8.2% annually and are now averaging $3,301, with only about 25 percent of listings offering a concession. San Jose and Chicago are also seeing strong rent growth with fewer negotiating opportunities. Single-family rentals are climbing faster than apartment rents, rising 3 percent compared to about 1.5 percent for multifamily units, largely because there's been more new apartment construction than new single-family homes.
Looking ahead, the market should stay relatively balanced. Zillow is forecasting moderate rent growth continuing through 2026, with single-family rents rising around 3.1 percent and multifamily rents about 2 percent. New apartment construction is slowing down as that building wave winds down, which means over time, concessions will probably become less common as landlords work through their inventory.
What I am seeing locally in the Bay Area and East Bay lines up with what Zillow is reporting nationally. The San Francisco numbers especially match what my clients are experiencing, and I'm telling both renters and landlords to understand where they stand right now. If you're renting and see a good deal with concessions, it's worth taking seriously because this window won't stay open forever. For landlords, the writing is on the wall that these generous concessions are a short-term reality of having supply, not the new permanent normal.
