Prolific Apartment Additions Coming to Asheville
Asheville, NC is set to receive more apartment units in 2025 than in any other year on record, and that ratio of growth is by far the nation’s largest.
Asheville added 1,198 new units in 2024, expanding existing inventory 4.7% and taking its unit count to roughly 26,700 units. However, completions are scheduled to ramp up in 2025. Asheville is expecting 3,549 units to come online this year, marking the highest delivery load for this market in the RealPage Market Analytics data set. Those additions translate to a 13.1% annual inventory increase, the highest in the nation and more than five times the national average of 2.4%. The nation’s second-largest growth rate in 2025 is expected in Huntsville, AL at 8.3%, well below Asheville’s anticipated growth pace. (Huntsville, meanwhile, has been the fastest-growing apartment market in the nation over the last couple years.)
Asheville’s existing inventory has grown at one of the fastest clips nationwide in the past 10 years. From 2014 to 2024, Asheville added roughly 9,800 apartment units, expanding its inventory nearly 55%. That expansion pace ranked #11 out of the nation’s 150 largest apartment markets. Still, even in a decade of elevated supply, the small North Carolina market’s delivery volume has averaged less than 1,000 units annually.
Demand Mounts, But Still Falls Below Supply
Annual demand levels have fallen short of concurrent supply for more than two years. However, demand is expected to pick up in tandem with elevated supply in 2025. In 2024, the market absorbed 1,007 units, trailing new supply by just 191 units. By the end of 2025, demand is forecasted to essentially match the prolific volume of new supply.
With demand trailing new supply for more than two years, occupancy in Asheville has steadily declined after reaching a decade high of 98.6% in February 2022. Occupancy has remained around 94.2% since August 2024. As of January 2025, occupancy in the market registered at 94.1%, 80 basis points (bps) below the national norm (94.9%) and 110 pbs below Asheville’s pre-pandemic five-year average from 2015 to 2019 (95.2%). Occupancy in Asheville is expected to return to pre-pandemic norms by the end of 2025, finishing the year around the essentially full mark (95%) and in line with the national norm.
Asheville apartment operators have cut rents on an annual basis since November 2023. In January 2024, rents fell 2.3% year-over-year. That was well below the 0.6% average rent increase seen across the U.S. and it was one of the steepest declines among the nation’s 150 largest apartment markets.
Average effective asking rents in Asheville are among the highest in the Carolinas. Asheville, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, is about an hour from Greenville/Spartanburg, about a two-hour drive from Charlotte and about four hours from Charleston. As of January, the average monthly rent for an apartment in Asheville was $1,624. In the Carolinas, only Charleston had a higher monthly rental rate ($1,730).
Demographics, Drivers of Demand & Storm Recovery
Asheville has a tourism-driven economy, with employment in Leisure/Hospitality Services comprising 14% of the job market, that’s well above the national average of 10.4%. However, Education/Health Services in Asheville has a largest share of employment (19.2%), followed by Trade/Transportation/Utilities (18.9%).
The Asheville metro area had a population of roughly 417,000 in 2023, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates. From 2022 to 2023 the metro’s population grew 0.8%, slightly above the national average growth rate of 0.5%. Much of Asheville’s population growth during that period was driven by residents 65 years and older, as the area is sought after by retirees due to its mild climate, scenic landscape and vibrant cultural.
While the damage from Tropical Storm Helene in late September 2024 was widespread and devastating, property loss was generally concentrated in homes and one-story buildings, as opposed to larger, taller structures such as apartments. RealPage data indicates that no apartment buildings were removed from inventory in 2024’s 4th quarter. Maps from the Federal Emergency Management Agency show approximately 450 homes in the Asheville area were destroyed by Helene. Additionally, the impact of the storm was most apparent in employment statistics. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Asheville metro area recorded a net loss of 4,200 jobs in October 2024. That represented a 2% decline in employment, the nation’s steepest relative drop. However, by the end of 2024, the area recovered all but 500 of those net job losses.
