Small Apartment Markets with Big Rent Increases

Some of the nation’s 100 secondary markets – those with about 25,000 to 110,000 existing units – are continuing to log significant rent increases. Of those smaller markets, 12 recorded increases in effective asking rents of greater than 3% in the year-ending March 2026, according to data from RealPage Market Analytics. While most markets in the Midwest and Northeast regions saw rent growth over the past year, rent cuts were prevalent in the South and West regions. Still, the South and West regions each had two small markets represented on the rent growth leaderboard, while five markets were in the Midwest region and three were in the Northeast. At the top of the list was Urban Honolulu in the West region with 7.1% annual rent growth, followed by Champaign-Urbana in the Midwest with a year-over-year price increase of 5.8%. Reno, the other small West region market on the list, posted annual rent growth of 4.7% despite inventory expanding by 2.5% over the past year. Portland-South Portland (in the Northeast), the only other market on the list with significant inventory expansion (2.6%), raised rents 4.4% over the past year. Shreveport-Bossier City/Minden led the small South region markets with a 3.7% annual rent increase in May, while Jackson (3.3%) was the only other market in the South to make the list. Among the 50 largest markets nationwide, five logged annual rent increases of more than 3%, with San Francisco leading the nation at 8.9%. For comparison, the U.S. overall averaged a slight decline of 0.5% in effective asking rents during the year-ending March.