Now that 2023 has ended, we can see how U.S. rental market has been affected by 2023's influx of new apartments, as well as ongoing economic uncertainty.  Rentcafe.com's year end competitivity report has now given us data on exactly what the numbers are for this time, showing both big growth in competition, and stagnation in demand.

First, Rentcafe.com reports  that  "vacant apartments stayed on the market for 38 days, on average, with nine prospective renters competing for each available unit. That’s almost one week longer than last year (32 days) when as many as 14 apartment seekers were competing for the same available unit.

Meanwhile, about 94% of the rental apartments nationwide were occupied, which was significantly below the 95.3% occupancy rate at the end of 2022. That’s mainly because renters had more apartments to choose from this year as 1.89% of the available rental units have been built since January. By comparison, in 2022, the share of newly built apartments represented just 1.5% of the available units during that year.

Furthermore, as new apartments surged this year, many renters chose to move out rather than renew their leases. More precisely, 60.2% of renters decided to stay put in 2023 as opposed to the 62.7% of renters who renewed their leases at the end of 2022."