ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 30, 2026--
Today Apartments.com, an industry-leading online marketplace of CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP), published its latest report on multifamily rent trends for September 2026.
Click to Gallery
Annual rent growth accelerates while monthly softens
Rent growth accelerates in Bay Area markets
Rent losses slow in many metros; yet others gain
Rent fall across all regions in September
National rent loss in September was smaller than in 2025
National rent growth falls in September
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260930695618/en/
U.S. apartment rents were slightly negative in September, with the national average falling -0.08% to $1,752 from August's upwardly revised level of $1,753. This slight decline ended the nine consecutive months of positive to flat rent increases following a period of flat to declining monthly performance in the second half of 2025 and early 2026. On an annual basis, rent growth accelerated to +1.5% in September 2026 from +1.3% in August and was up measurably from the +1.0% reading recorded one year earlier.
The August 2026 national average was initially reported as a -0.03% month-over-month decrease and has been revised upward to 0.0%.
While apartment rent growth typically slows in the fall leasing season, the -0.08% month-over-month decline recorded in September continues the recent pattern of fall rent decreases observed since 2024. However, this year's pullback was considerably milder than the declines of 0.2% reported in both September 2024 and September 2025, which may suggest some improvement in pricing conditions. Annual rent growth continues to trend higher, though elevated supply levels remain a constraint on pricing momentum nationally.
Regional rent growth was uniformly down in September. Monthly declines were most pronounced in the Mountain region with a -0.3% decrease. The other regions all also posted declines: the South at -0.02% and the Pacific at -0.08%. Less significant declines were posted in the Northeast and Midwest regions, down -0.7 and -0.6%, respectively. On an annual basis, regional performance remained uneven. The Pacific, Midwest and Northeast recorded the strongest year-over-year rent growth, at +2.4%, +2.3% and 2.2%, respectively. In the South region, annual rent increases were subdued at +0.2%, but positive for the first time since September 2025.
In contrast, rents declined year-over-year in the West by -0.1%. While still negative, the Mountain region significantly trimmed its annual decline over the summer. However, in September annual rent declines deepened. Performance across Western markets continues to diverge, with supply-heavy Mountain metropolitan areas facing greater pressure than more supply-constrained Pacific markets.
At the metropolitan level, rent growth was less widespread in September than in August, with 8 of the top 50 markets posting month-over-month increases, 7 with unchanged rents and 35 recording declines. Indianapolis led monthly rent growth with a +1.0% increase, followed by Louisville at +0.8% and Orange County at +0.2%. Thirty-five major markets recorded monthly rent declines, led by Salt Lake City at -0.8% and San Antonio, Columbus, Seattle, Raleigh and Boston all at -0.5%, with several others posting smaller decreases.
On an annual basis, San Francisco continued to outperform, posting rent growth of +12.8%, followed by San Jose at +8.2%, Norfolk at +5.8% and East Bay at +5.4%. Meanwhile, markets experiencing the largest supply/demand imbalance remained under pressure, led by San Antonio with a -1.8% annual decline, followed by Las Vegas at -1.3%, and Denver and Houston, both at -1.0%, reflecting that new supply continues to outpace demand.
Regionally, the breadth of monthly rent growth narrowed in September, though year-over-year performance strengthened across all regions, continuing to vary widely and remaining closely tied to local supply conditions. While most markets have moved past peak construction activity, a substantial, though gradually easing, inventory overhang continues to moderate rent growth nationally as the summer leasing season concludes.
About CoStar Group
CoStar Group (NASDAQ: CSGP) is a global leader in commercial real estate information, analytics, online marketplaces, and 3D digital twin technology. Founded in 1986, CoStar Group is dedicated to digitizing the world’s real estate, empowering all people to discover properties, insights, and connections that improve their businesses and lives.
CoStar Group’s major brands include CoStar, a leading global provider of commercial real estate data, analytics, and news; LoopNet, the most trafficked commercial real estate marketplace; Apartments.com, the leading platform for apartment rentals; Homes.com, the fastest-growing residential real estate marketplace; and Domain, one of Australia’s leading property marketplaces. CoStar Group’s industry-leading brands also include Matterport, a leading spatial data company whose platform turns buildings into data to make every space more valuable and accessible; STR, a global leader in hospitality data and benchmarking; Zonda, a leading provider of data, analytics, software, and marketplace solutions for the residential construction industry; Ten-X, an online platform for commercial real estate auctions and negotiated bids; and OnTheMarket, a leading residential property portal in the United Kingdom.
CoStar Group’s websites attracted over 118 million average monthly unique visitors in the second quarter of 2026, serving clients around the world. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, CoStar Group is committed to transforming the real estate industry through innovative technology and comprehensive market intelligence. From time to time, we plan to utilize our corporate website as a channel of distribution for material company information. For more information, visit CoStarGroup.com.
Annual rent growth accelerates while monthly softens
Rent growth accelerates in Bay Area markets
Rent losses slow in many metros; yet others gain
Rent fall across all regions in September
National rent loss in September was smaller than in 2025
National rent growth falls in September
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee's execution of Christa Gail Pike for a murder she committed at age 18 was halted Wednesday shortly before it was set to begin, as a court sought to review whether her allegations of childhood sexual abuse were fully considered at her sentencing.
Pike, now 50, and her boyfriend were convicted of the 1995 stabbing and beating of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville.
The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals halted Pike's execution on a 2-1 vote about an hour before the scheduled execution time, as witnesses and others gathered at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Tennessee has not executed a woman in at least 200 years.
The case garnered widespread attention at the time of the killing in part because a pentagram that was carved on Slemmer’s body and other elements of the crime stoked fears of Satan worship during the “satanic panic” of the 1980s and 1990s.
Tennessee’s attorney general immediately appealed the stay to the U.S. Supreme Court. Witnesses and media remained at the prison while the high court considered whether to allow the execution to proceed.
The state's execution order expires at midnight, said Kelley Henry, a Nashville-based attorney experienced with Tennessee death penalty law. If time runs out and the stay is lifted, the Tennessee Supreme Court would need to set a new execution date.
In its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the attorney general's office wrote that halting the execution at the last moment traumatized Slemmer’s family and rewarded “abusive delay tactics” by Pike’s attorneys.
Pike does not deny committing the killing, but her supporters argue the state should consider her age at the time, her mental illness and her allegations of severe sexual abuse that included being raped from the time she was a toddler.
“It is inconceivable that in the 21st century, the criminal justice system is poised to execute a survivor of rape and child sexual abuse whose jury never had the opportunity to consider those facts in weighing the defendant’s moral culpability,” her attorneys wrote in a filing to the U.S. Supreme Court.
As the execution date drew near, Pike's case renewed debate over the death penalty for young offenders.
Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell said Pike’s death sentence is an outlier because other 18-year-olds in Tennessee have had such sentences vacated.
After the killing, Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. In her clemency petition, she said she only wanted to fight Slemmer but killed her in a frenzied attack when she couldn’t “put the brakes on.”
“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime,” Pike said in a statement.
Slemmer’s mother wants the lethal injection to go forward, saying she has waited decades to see Pike’s sentence carried out.
“Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run,” May Martinez told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Saturday.
Martinez said a group helped raise money so she and her husband could travel from Florida to witness the execution. She didn't respond to a message Wednesday after the execution was halted.
Martinez said her daughter's age also should matter in deciding Pike's fate.
“Not a day goes by, or a minute goes by that I do not think about Colleen. Holidays are the worst,” she said, noting that her daughter would have turned 51 earlier in September.
The killing rocked the city of Knoxville. Prosecutors said Pike, fearing Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend, lured her to a wooded area on Jan. 12, 1995. Pike cut Slemmer with a box cutter and beat her with a large chunk of asphalt. Shipp, Pike’s boyfriend, has admitted that he was the one who carved a pentagram, a star-shaped symbol associated with Satan, into her body.
Shipp was 17 when the crime happened and received a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. Pike was the only one sentenced to death.
Tennessee has not executed a woman for at least 200 years, according to Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Older records can be spotty, though, so it’s difficult to know precise details about the last woman who was put to death there.
Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 18 women have been put to death in the U.S., representing about 1% of all executions, according to the center.
Most recently, Missouri in 2023 executed Amber McLaughlin for a 2003 killing, in what is believed to be the first execution of a transgender woman in the U.S. In 2021, the federal government executed Lisa Montgomery, marking the first time in nearly seven decades that the U.S. government put a female inmate to death.
Pike would be the 30th person executed in the U.S. this year after Florida carried out an execution on Tuesday.
Associated Press journalists Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, and Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.
May Martinez, left, mother of murder victim Colleen Slemmer, walks out of Riverbend Maximum Security Institution during a stay of the planned execution of Christa Pike, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Leslie Brown, right, stands with others in the area reserved for people in favor to the death penalty outside Riverbend Maximum Security Institution before the planned execution of Christa Pike, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Kathleen Walter prays in the area reserved for people opposed to the death penalty outside Riverbend Maximum Security Institution before the planned execution of Christa Pike, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Abraham Bonowitz speaks during a March 4 Mercy protest against the death penalty at the Tennessee State Capitol, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. ahead of the Sept. 30th scheduled execution of Christa Pike. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Alonzo Hughes participates in a March 4 Mercy protest against the death penalty at the Tennessee State Capitol, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. ahead of the Sept. 30th scheduled execution of Christa Pike. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
In this image from video provided by WBIR-TV, Christa Pike cries after being sentenced to death on March 30, 1996 in Knoxville, Tenn. (WBIR-TV via AP)
This photo provided by the Tennessee Department of Correction shows Christa Pike on Jan. 12, 2023. (TDOC via AP)
