2.5% Down or 0.1% Up: Houston Rent Depends on the Yardstick

Cushman & Wakefield says the average Houston apartment rent fell 2.5% over the past year. Zillow says the typical Houston rent rose 0.1%.

Both came out in October for the same metro, and an owner refinancing this winter will hear each of them. The Cushman third-quarter MarketBeat put the average effective rent at $1,299 a unit, while Zillow’s Oct. 15 release put its September index for Houston at $1,638.

Six other public series updated this fall land between those two readings. The spread mostly comes from what each one measures, and an investor who knows which yardstick a broker, appraiser or lender is holding can read a rent roll more accurately.

The readings in between

Apartment List, which tracks signed leases on its own platform, reported on Oct. 28 that the median rent in the city of Houston fell 2.2% from a year earlier. Its Houston report puts the metro decline at 1.9% and the metro median at $1,330.

Yardi Matrix put Houston at a 2% annual decline in its September national report, according to BDC Network's Oct. 13 summary. Yardi's RentCafe page, updated Oct. 30, lists a $1,343 average, down 1.26% from $1,360.

The asking-rent series show smaller declines. The Apartments.com October rent report from CoStar had Houston down 0.8%, tied with Orlando for the third-largest annual decline among the 50 largest markets, while national asking rents rose 1.6%.

The Greater Houston Partnership’s Oct. 27 update also shows a 0.8% drop, to a $1,362 average asking rent in the third quarter from $1,373 a year earlier. Lee & Associates reported a $1,369 asking rent for the quarter against $1,373 in the third quarter of 2025.

Asking, effective and in place

The first gap is concessions. An asking rent is the sticker price, and an effective rent subtracts the free weeks, so Cushman's 2.5% decline and CoStar's 0.8% can both be right in the same quarter.

A Taco Street Locating list updated Oct. 27 shows up to eight weeks free at Parkside Residences and Brava downtown and at Alexan 5151 near Post Oak, which works out to roughly 15% of a 12-month lease by our math.

RealPage counted concessions on 14.5% of stabilized U.S. units in September, with an average discount of 11.1%. Its Texas analysis gave no Houston figure, so the local share remains a gap in the public data.

The second gap is who is paying. The Bureau of Labor Statistics rent index covers every tenant, including renewals and leases signed months ago, and its September release shows Houston rent down 0.5% from a year earlier while the U.S. index rose 2.8%.

Cleveland Fed economists Brian Adams, Lara Loewenstein, Hugh Montag and Randal Verbrugge found in a 2023 working paper that most of the distance between the CPI and private rent indexes comes from new-tenant rents moving differently from all-tenant rents. They also found new-lease inflation carries information about where the all-tenant number goes next.

What it means for owners and investors

A Houston rent roll today holds two prices. Renewals and older leases sit near the BLS reading, roughly flat, while a vacant unit leases at something closer to the Cushman or Apartment List figure, about 2% to 2.5% below last year after concessions.

That difference matters most at sale and refinance. A buyer who underwrites the in-place roll and a lender who marks every unit to today's effective new-lease rent will produce different net operating incomes from the same property, and with Lee putting Houston's third-quarter cap rate at 6.8%, small changes in NOI move value.

The forecasts set early in the year were more optimistic. Marcus & Millichap projected 2.3% Houston rent growth for 2026 to a $1,410 average, as CRE Daily reported in April, and Northmarq said in May that rents gained 1.0% to open the year.

None of the fall series comes close to 2.3% for the metro. Cushman counted four of its 28 submarkets with positive annual rent growth by quarter-end, and its table lists North Galveston County at 2.1%, South Central Houston at 0.9%, Neartown River Oaks at 0.2% and East End at 0.0%.

Geography adds a third gap. Apartment List shows Baytown rents down 6.2% for the year, while Cushman's Baytown submarket shows a 2.6% decline at a $1,063 effective rent, so a submarket comparison needs both sources' boundaries checked first.

The demand side is improving faster than price. Cushman counted 9,803 units of net absorption through the third quarter, up 68.4% from a year earlier, and said the annual rent decline narrowed from 2.8% in the first quarter to 2.7% in the second and 2.5% in the third.

What to watch next

Supply is the reason the decline could keep narrowing. Cushman counts 11,538 units under construction, more than 70% below the 40,126 underway at the first-quarter 2023 peak, and GHP reported 4,795 completions in the third quarter.

The job numbers cut the other way. Workforce Solutions reported that Houston-area employers shed 7,300 jobs in September before seasonal adjustment, and the Dallas Fed cut its 2026 Texas job growth forecast to 0.9% on Oct. 19.

Financing costs push in both directions. Zillow put the typical new-homeowner payment in Houston at $2,665 and rental demand on its platform up 32.2% from a year earlier, while the 10-year Treasury closed Oct. 30 at 4.94% and SOFR printed 3.95%.

BLS paused its new-tenant rent index in April 2026, so for now no public federal series isolates new leases, the one measure that would settle part of this debate.

The all-tenant index did move in September. Houston's CPI rent index rose 0.4% to 328.715, its first monthly gain since April.