REAL ESTATE NEWS

Apartment owners are leaning harder on giveaways, but the pressure was anything but evenly distributed. A recent report from RealPage Market Analytics shows a handful of large Sun Belt and Western metros carrying an outsize share of the nation?s concessions load, with double?digit effective rent discounts now embedded in day?to?day pricing rather than confined to lease?up outliers. For investors, the pattern reads less like broad distress and more like a targeted response to heavy new supply and shifting demand in a specific set of markets.

National and Regional Backdrop

RealPage reports that 16% of stabilized apartments nationwide offered concessions in November, with the average discount at 10.2% of face rent, the richest level since September 2024. Concession prevalence and depth were highest in Class A and Class C products, while Class B remained comparatively less aggressive and the South and West Coast together pushed national averages higher.

Roughly 20.1% of properties in the South were offering concessions in November, nearly double the shares in the Northeast and Midwest, at 11.6% and 10.7%, respectively. The West Coast was not far behind the South, with 15.3% of properties offering discounts, reinforcing that supply?heavy, recently repriced coastal and Sun Belt metros are driving the national concession story.

Markets with the Heaviest Usage

RealPage?s market?level analysis shows that among the nation?s largest apartment markets, six of the ten most concession?heavy metros are in the South and four are in the West. Every one of the top ten posted double?digit concession rates in November and Austin recorded the highest average discount among large markets nationwide.

San Antonio?New Braunfels, Texas, ranked first for the share of stabilized units offering some form of concession, at 31.3%, though its average concession rate of 11.1% sat mid?pack for this cohort.

Austin?Round Rock?San Marcos, Texas, followed closely, with 31.2% of units using concessions, but led the list in depth, with an average discount of 14%.

Denver?Aurora?Centennial, Colorado, placed third with 28.3% of units offering concessions and a 13.6% rate, while Nashville?Davidson?Murfreesboro?Franklin, Tennessee, posted 26.1% usage and a 13% discount.

Las Vegas?Henderson?North Las Vegas recorded 25.8% of units with concessions at an average rate of 10.4%, indicating that a quarter of stabilized stock relies on givebacks despite only a modestly above?average discount.

Phoenix?Mesa?Chandler registered 24.4% usage and a 13.5% concession rate, keeping it near the top of both prevalence and depth measures.

Charlotte?Concord?Gastonia came in at 23.6% of units with concessions and an 11.6% discount, with Tampa?St. Petersburg?Clearwater posting nearly identical usage at 23.5% and an 11.1% rate.

Dallas?Plano?Irving showed 23.1% of stabilized stock offering concessions at an average of 10.5% and Salt Lake City/Ogden/Brigham City rounded out the list with 23% usage and a relatively steep 12.9% discount.

Supply, Pricing Power and Market Narratives

RealPage links the outsized role of Southern markets on this list to multi?year supply waves that have outpaced even solid demand. Austin and San Antonio exemplify that dynamic: both have seen extreme construction volumes since the pandemic and both now rely on aggressive concessions to maintain occupancy even as effective rents are cut year?over?year.

In Austin, RealPage notes that concessions had already been among the nation?s highest back in August, and that strategy has continued as operators contend with a still?elevated new?supply pipeline.

San Antonio?s elevated usage reflects a market that has absorbed record levels of new product in recent years, with inventory growth of nearly 5% and demand concentrated in submarkets like New Braunfels and Schertz.

With development now slowing, operators have leaned on concessions alongside rent cuts, particularly in Class C assets, to stabilize occupancy, which was in the low?90% range by mid?2025. Dallas and Charlotte tell similar stories: large deliveries, selective rent cuts and a willingness to protect occupancy through moderate concessions rather than deeper face?rent reductions.

In the West, Denver, Phoenix and Salt Lake City share a different but related narrative. Each market absorbed sizable construction waves during and after the pandemic. By late 2025, all three were still working through that new inventory with a mix of concessions and rent cuts, even as demand remained fundamentally healthy.

For Phoenix in particular, RealPage has highlighted the shift from earlier pandemic?era in?migration strength to a more normalized demand profile, forcing operators to rely on discounts that now average the mid?teens as a share of rent.

Tourism?dependent markets such as Las Vegas and Tampa appear on the list for somewhat different reasons. RealPage has pointed to softening discretionary travel and consumer spending as early warning signs in these metros, with operators deploying concessions alongside rent cuts to backfill demand that no longer looks as robust as it did earlier in the cycle.

In Nashville, which sits at the intersection of tourism, in?migration and heavy construction, elevated concessions are also part of a broader reset from exceptional pandemic?era performance to more competitive conditions.

A Market-Specific Tool

Taken together, RealPage?s November data suggest that concession usage is less a universal signal of distress than a market?specific tool that is most prominent where supply remains thick and demand is recalibrating.

Across the U.S., the share of apartments offering concessions has fluctuated over the past year, but the value of those concessions has generally trended higher, which RealPage warns could make true rent growth harder to realize until discounts burn off. At the same time, occupancy nationally is hovering just below 95%. In many of the concession?heavy markets, demand remains solid enough that owners are choosing targeted giveaways rather than capitulating on prices.

For capital weighing these metros, the data underscores the importance of looking past asking rents to the effective rates embedded in concessions and to the competitive context driving them.

Markets like Austin, Phoenix and Charlotte still show strong structural demand but will likely require patience on revenue growth as elevated concession packages work their way through renewal cycles, while tourism?weighted markets such as Las Vegas, Tampa and Nashville may warrant closer scrutiny of macro?sensitive demand risk.

RealPage?s outlook suggests that as national supply moderates further and demand holds, concession usage should gradually recede, but the path and timing will vary sharply across this top?ten list.

Source: GlobeSt/ALM