The Apartment List's latest national rent report said that median rent has plunged by 0.7% year-over-year, or about $10 for October, hitting $1,394. Year-over-year rental comparisons have been negative for almost 18 months. However, it is still $200 more than it was a few years ago before the revving up of what happened during the pandemic when an influx of capital radically pushed up the price of multifamily properties and the rents needed to sustain business plans.

The rent estimates start with the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. The firm takes statistics from recent movers, taking them as a proxy for market prices, and then uses a growth rate constructed from real-time transactions that take place on its own platform. They also do a "same-unit, repeat transaction analysis" for what they say is an accurate view of rent growth.

Apartment List also reports on national average vacancy rates that have reached 6.8%, the highest level since the pandemic. This category is calculated as a ratio of unoccupied total units on properties listed on their platform. These assets aren't a fully representative sample of all in a given market. But the dynamic they reference, a high amount of new inventory entering the rental markets and harming occupancy, the inverse of vacancy, has been widely reported.