Apartment rents in the US recorded a fourth consecutive monthly decline in December, signaling a further cooling in the US housing market brought on, in part, by the Federal Reserve's tightening monetary policy. According to RealPage Market Analytics, effective asking rents for new leases nationally fell 0.44% in December, following an average erosion of 0.28% from September through November 2022. Rents fell 0.59% in November, the largest monthly decline since 2010, outside of the pandemic-distorted months of April and May 2020.

On a year-over-year basis, RealPage data shows that national effective rent growth for new leases was 5.68%, the smallest increase since May 2021 and well below the peak of 15.7% in March 2022. Occupancy in December remained relatively high at 94.95%. That's consistent with long-term averages, and slightly below the same month in both 2018 and 2019, but 2.53% below December 2021. Leasing traffic among prospective renters declined throughout 2022, and Q4 2022 activity was the weakest for any fourth quarter since 2014, which itself was about 14% below the 10-year historical average.