Before the year wraps up, here's just a few quick takeaways on the apartment market in 2024:
- Robust U.S. apartment supply — more than any year since 1974 — has matched the strongest renter demand in three decades besides 2021.
- The national occupancy rate held slightly below a "historically normal" level, averaging around 94.3%. Resident retention surged with lease renewals reaching a rarely seen 55%, while U.S. annual rent growth remained flat overall (less than 1%).
- Elevated apartment development saw 60% more units under construction than the 2010s-decade norm, but the pipeline began to slow with the fewest number of starts since early 2013.
