Recent-lease rent growth: +9.4%.
Rent + vacancy screen · constrained national screen
Rental markets where rents rose as vacancy tightened
Direct Apartment List metro observations identify markets where recent-lease rent rose while the vacancy index fell over the same twelve months.
Question answeredWhich directly matched metro rental markets combine positive twelve-month rent growth with a declining vacancy index?
Visual ranking
The leading ten, with one metric encoded.
The chart stays intentionally narrow: it shows the ordering metric, while the table and counter-signals keep the rest of the decision visible.
The median of the ten displayed leaders, not a national threshold.
The table preserves the counter-metrics needed before opening a market brief.
Evidence table
Top twenty qualifying market areas.
Each row links to the full metro evidence. Figures retain the units and concepts named in the column headers.
| Rank | Market area | Rent change | Vacancy index | Vacancy change | Time on market |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | San Francisco, CA | +9.4% | 3.3% | −1.4 pp | 19.7 |
| #2 | San Jose, CA | +7.7% | 3.9% | −1.5 pp | 22 |
| #3 | Virginia Beach, VA | +5.8% | 4.1% | −1.2 pp | 17.7 |
| #4 | Boise City, ID | +5.7% | 4.4% | −2.3 pp | n/a |
| #5 | Reno, NV | +5.4% | 4.7% | −0.1 pp | n/a |
| #6 | Milwaukee, WI | +4.1% | 5.2% | −1.6 pp | n/a |
| #7 | Sioux Falls, SD | +2.6% | 8.8% | −0.6 pp | n/a |
| #8 | Corpus Christi, TX | +2.6% | 8.6% | −0.4 pp | n/a |
| #9 | Charleston, SC | +2.1% | 6.7% | −1.2 pp | 25.3 |
| #10 | Baton Rouge, LA | +2.1% | 5.9% | −0.9 pp | n/a |
| #11 | Des Moines, IA | +2.1% | 7.1% | −0.1 pp | n/a |
| #12 | Wilmington, NC | +2.1% | 6.8% | −1.9 pp | n/a |
| #13 | Albany, NY | +1.9% | 2.6% | −1.5 pp | n/a |
| #14 | St. Louis, MO | +1.8% | 6.3% | −0.4 pp | 24.7 |
| #15 | Detroit, MI | +1.5% | 4.3% | −0.3 pp | 21 |
| #16 | Philadelphia, PA | +1.4% | 5.4% | −0.0 pp | 27 |
| #17 | Chattanooga, TN | +1.3% | 6.6% | −0.4 pp | n/a |
| #18 | Clarksville, TN | +1.2% | 6.2% | −1.5 pp | n/a |
| #19 | Pensacola, FL | +1.2% | 7.6% | −0.7 pp | n/a |
| #20 | Spokane, WA | +1.1% | 5.1% | −0.0 pp | n/a |
Method and limits
What this order means—and what it does not.
This is a repeatable screening order, not an investment recommendation, forecast or property-level estimate.
Inclusion and ordering rule: Include a RentMarker metro only when Apartment List publishes an overall rent estimate for the current release and the same month one year earlier plus a current and year-earlier Vacancy Index, and its published metro FIPS code exactly equals the stored OMB CBSA code. Time on market is optional and remains unavailable where not published.
How it is calculated
- Twelve-month rent growth divides the current overall Apartment List rent estimate by the same metro's estimate twelve months earlier and subtracts one.
- Vacancy change subtracts the year-earlier Vacancy Index from the current index and is reported in percentage points; no occupancy rate is inferred.
- Current time on market and its twelve-month change use only direct published monthly observations. Missing time-on-market rows remain NULL and do not remove an otherwise complete rent-vacancy metro.
- The four descriptive groups use only the signs of rent growth and vacancy change. Rows are ordered by rent growth, not by a composite score or forecast.
Counter-signals to carry
- Higher rent growth with falling vacancy is consistent with tighter rental conditions, but does not identify the cause or predict future rent.
- Rising vacancy can reflect new supply, seasonal turnover, local demand change or measurement noise; time on market provides a second liquidity lens only where coverage exists.
- A metro average can hide large differences by neighborhood, bedroom count, property quality and lease date.
Limits before use
- Apartment List estimates use recent lease transactions observed in its platform and a repeat-rent methodology; they are not Zillow ZORI, Realtor listing medians, HUD FMR or Census gross rent.
- The vacancy index and time-on-market series have smaller geographic coverage than rent estimates. Missing values are not zero, estimated or filled from another source.
- Published monthly rent estimates are rounded dollars, so recomputed growth can differ slightly from a publisher summary calculated on unrounded internal estimates.
Source ledger
Named releases behind this ranking.
Release period and pull date remain attached so a later refresh can reproduce a different order honestly.
Apartment List Rent Estimates — recent-lease rent indexApartment List 2026-07Pulled 2026-08-08Apartment List Time on Market — listing liquidityApartment List 2026-07Pulled 2026-08-08Apartment List Vacancy Index — rental vacancyApartment List 2026-07Pulled 2026-08-08OMB/BLS delineation — metro geographyOMB July 2023 delineationPulled 2026-07-30
Next decision
Move from a market screen to a property test.
Open the market evidence first, then replace market-wide typicals with the candidate property’s actual price, rent and operating assumptions.