The Atlanta apartment market has undergone one of the deepest rent softenings in the nation, as of March 2023. After hitting record highs just one year ago, effective asking rent growth started to decline significantly at the end of 2022, according to data from RealPage Market Analytics. On a monthly basis, Atlanta rent growth has stagnated, ticking up just 0.1% in March, after no change in February and a slight 0.1% monthly rent cut in January. In March 2023, rent growth cooled to 1.3% year-over-year, returning closer towards pre-pandemic rent change. This was a drastic change from the market’s performance in late 2021 and early 2022, when annual rental growth exceeded 20% for five consecutive months. With rents cooling in Atlanta, annual rent growth ranked as a bottom six performance among the nation’s top 50 markets in March, outperforming only San Francisco, Austin, Sacramento, Las Vegas and Phoenix. Across Atlanta’s asset classes, Class A (2.4%) and Class C (2%) reported modest annual rent growth as of March. Class B product, meanwhile, reported the weakest annual rent growth at just 0.4%.
