Just the other day, an analysis from Apartment List declared a month of negative rent growth along with the other five that had gone before.

Median rent is down by 3.5% since the peak during the summer of 2023. "The only period that brought a sharper decline was from September 2022 to January 2023, when rents fell by 3.7 percent as the market shifted into the period of sluggishness that still persists," they said. In the three-year period before the pandemic, average winter rent decline was 1.8%. And much of the driving force is a surplus of new apartment construction and added inventory of living units.

"Tepid rent growth at the start of 2024 may seem counterintuitive considering the resurgence of apartment demand over the past 12 months," said RealPage Senior Director of Research and Analysis Carl Whitaker in a Wednesday analysis. "But it's important to remember that supply also increased substantially during that same window. In fact, the volume of new supply outpaced absorption and that trend will likely persist throughout 2024. As such, rent growth should continue to face downward pressure as a result of new apartment deliveries."