Why Falling Rents Don’t Feel Like Relief for Millions of U.S. Renters

When rents finally began to cool after the pandemic-era surge, many renters hoped the pressure would ease across the board. Instead, the relief has been unevenly distributed.

According to a new December 2025 rental report from Realtor.com® biggest rent declines have largely benefited higher-income renters, while low-income households continue to face outsized increases that show little sign of reversing.

The numbers tell a clear story. Since late 2019, the national median asking rent has risen just under 17%. But that average masks a widening divide within the market.

Rents at the lower end – defined as the 25th percentile – have jumped roughly 20% over the same period. By contrast, higher-priced rentals at the 75th percentile saw growth of only 12.5%.

In other words, the cheapest apartments have become disproportionately more expensive, while pricier units have seen more modest increases – and, more recently, sharper declines.

“This puts disproportionate pressure on the lowest earners to afford their rent while higher-end renters are enjoying the majority of recent rent declines,” said Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com.

Why Falling Rents Don’t Feel Like Relief

Rents have technically been trending down since 2023. December marked the 29th straight month of year-over-year declines, with the median asking rent across the 50 largest U.S. metros falling to $1,689, down 0.7% from December 2024.

But focusing on the median alone obscures what’s really happening beneath the surface.

Since December 2022, rents for higher-priced units have fallen 3.5%. The median declined 2.3%. Lower-priced rentals barely budged, slipping just 0.8%.

That imbalance helps explain why many low-income renters say they feel no relief at all.

“This helps answer the question we often hear – if median rent is falling, why do low-income renters continue to struggle?” Berner said.

The same trend is also reshaping the housing market more broadly. Renters in higher-priced units – often those with the financial capacity to buy homes – are delaying homeownership because their rental costs now feel manageable.

That has softened demand in the for-sale market, even as affordability worsens at the bottom.

A Shrinking Supply of Affordable Rentals

Economists behind the report analyzed rental listings for studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom units across the nation’s 50 largest metro areas. Their focus was not just on rent levels, but on how the relationship between cheaper and more expensive units has changed since before the pandemic.

What they found was a nationwide “compression” of asking rents – a narrowing of the gap between low-end and high-end prices. This compression isn’t happening because affordable units are getting cheaper.

It’s happening because low-cost rentals surged upward while high-end units experienced more limited growth and, recently, larger declines.

Nowhere is this more evident than in cities where affordable housing has effectively vanished.

Boston and Nashville: Where Low-Income Renters Are Being Squeezed the Hardest

Boston has emerged as the least affordable major market for low-income renters. Between December 2019 and December 2025, the share of the median rent represented by lower-priced units rose from 79.2% to 86.1%.

Put simply, renters looking for something below Boston’s median monthly rent of $2,844 now have far fewer options than they did six years ago.

Nashville follows closely behind, with a 6.8 percentage point increase in the burden faced by low-income renters. Atlanta, Chicago, and Baltimore round out the list of markets where affordability has deteriorated most sharply.

In Nashville, the shift has been especially disruptive.

Michelle Becker, a real estate agent in the area, traces the problem back to the post-pandemic period, when many owners of older, lower-rent properties sold them off. Developers either demolished those homes to build luxury housing or renovated them and relisted them at much higher rents.

“That trend decreased the number of older single-family homes, duplexes, or even larger properties that were renting on the lower end of the market,” Becker said.

Even when rental inventory expanded in 2024, it offered little relief. Most new units were high-end, priced well beyond the reach of budget-conscious renters.

As rents climbed rapidly between late 2020 and early 2024, many Nashville residents were forced to leave the city entirely, moving to outlying communities or doubling up with family.

According to Becker, the rental landscape has fundamentally changed – and may not return to what it once was without targeted efforts to rebuild affordable housing.

Where Low-Income Renters Are Faring Better

Not every metro tells the same story.

Cleveland currently stands out as the most affordable large market for low-income renters. With a median rent of $1,257 in December, the city maintains the largest share of lower-priced rental options among the top 50 metros.

New York City, despite its reputation for sky-high rents, also delivered a surprise. While overall rents remain expensive, lower-priced units have fallen relative to the median since 2019.

That shift means budget renters now have more options than they did six years ago.

“NYC metro rents used to be more tightly packed, but they’ve spread out below the median a bit,” Berner explained. “The 25th percentile has fallen relative to the median.”

Other metros where affordability has improved at the lower end include Birmingham, Detroit, and Cincinnati.

The Bigger Picture

The takeaway is not that rents are universally high or universally falling. It’s who benefits that depends on where you sit in the market.

Higher-income renters are seeing the most relief, gaining flexibility and delaying home purchases. Low-income renters, meanwhile, are grappling with higher prices, fewer choices, and shrinking margins for error.

As the rental market recalibrates after years of volatility, the data suggest one thing clearly: without deliberate efforts to preserve and rebuild affordable housing, rent declines alone will not solve the affordability crisis, and for millions of low-income households, relief may remain out of reach.