Three Times More Apartments Absorbed than Started This Year

The U.S. apartment market is absorbing over three times more units than developers are getting off the ground right now. Just over 209,000 new market-rate apartment units started construction across the U.S. in the year-ending 1st quarter 2025. That was well below the annual average (307,300 units) from the past decade. In fact, annual starts volumes have fallen off every quarter for 10 quarters after peaking at roughly 587,000 units started in the year-ending 3rd quarter 2022. Meanwhile, the U.S. market is absorbing apartments much faster than new projects can be started. Demand reached a record high of nearly 708,00 units in the year-ending 1st quarter. That means that there were 3.4 times more units rented than started in the last year, which marks the highest demand-to-starts ratio since 2010.