---
title: Rental Concessions Remain Common in the Sun Belt as Coastal Rents Climb Faster
description: Charlotte, Denver and Dallas renters get concessions on two in three listings while San Francisco and San Jose rents climb with little room to negotiate.
author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
updated: 2026-07-25T11:24:59.522Z
canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/zillow-rental-concessions-sun-belt-coastal-rents
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/us-rental-market-concessions-30810.webp
categories: Markets
content_type: News
region: United States
publication: Sovereign Magazine
schema_type: Article
---

The typical US apartment rented for $1,965 in June, up 2.2% from a year earlier, a slight pickup from May and the third straight month to beat its 2025 pace. Renters facing that increase still have room to negotiate almost as often as landlords have room to raise: 39.7% of listings on Zillow carried a concession in June, up from 35.2% a year ago, meaning nearly two in five renters can extract a discount before signing a lease.

A concession is typically a free month's rent, waived fees or free parking rather than a lower advertised price. How common they are depends almost entirely on how many apartments a market has built in recent years. Cities that added the most new supply are handing renters the most leverage. Cities that did not are seeing rents rise fastest, with far less room to bargain.

The split reflects a rental market working through the tail end of a multi-year construction boom, even as the [cost of buying a home](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/realtor-com-climate-risk-home-prices) remains high enough to keep many renters in the market longer than they might otherwise stay.

## Where Renters Still Have Leverage

Charlotte tops the list, with 67.1% of listings offering a concession in June, followed by Denver at 65.9% and Dallas at 64.6%. Phoenix (61.0%), Nashville (64.0%), Austin (64.3%), Raleigh (64.1%) and Salt Lake City (64.2%) posted similarly high rates. All of them added heavy apartment supply over the past several years, and it shows in rents: San Antonio rents fell 1.8% over the year to $1,416, Austin fell 1.7% to $1,653, and Denver fell 1.3% to $1,930, even with concessions still elevated in each market. Dallas rents were flat, unchanged over the year at $1,673, despite a concession rate above 64%.

## Where the Leverage Has Run Out

San Francisco leads the nation in rent growth, up 8.2% annually to $3,301, while only 24.9% of its listings carried a concession in June. San Jose rents climbed 6.2% to $3,729 with concessions on just 23.7% of listings, and Chicago rose 5.2% to $2,275 with 23.3% offering a deal. New York rents rose 4.5% to $3,573, and only 17.2% of its listings came with a concession, one of the lowest rates in the report.

> "The payoff from the construction boom is showing up clearly for renters right now. Markets that invested in new housing are rewarding renters with more choices, more concessions and more competitive pricing."
> — Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow

Divounguy said renters in built up markets are seeing the direct benefit of new supply. Renters in areas that did not add housing are feeling the opposite, he said, as rents keep climbing while affordability improves slowly, if at all.

## Houses Are Pulling Away From Apartments

Single-family rentals rose 3% over the year to $2,320, roughly double the 1.5% increase for apartments, now at $1,789. Apartment construction added far more units than single-family rental construction did, giving tenants who want an apartment more choice and pulling down the growth rate for that segment. Zillow expects the pattern to hold through the rest of 2026, forecasting 3.1% growth for single-family rents against 2% for multifamily units.

## Why the Deals Might Not Last

The elevated concession rates trace back to a construction wave that added more apartments than the rental market had absorbed at once. That wave is fading. Building completions fell further in the second quarter of 2026, even as demand for new units kept climbing. The National Apartment Association's [2026 outlook](https://naahq.org/news/2026-apartment-housing-outlook) expects supply to keep tapering through the year, with pricing power beginning to return to landlords and national rent growth trending back toward 2%. For renters in Charlotte, Dallas and the rest of the Sun Belt, that points toward a narrowing window: the deals on offer today are unlikely to disappear overnight, but as the current inventory gets absorbed, concessions in the country's most generous rental markets should get harder to find over the next year or two.

## FAQ

**Q: What is the meaning of rental concession?**
A rental concession is an incentive a landlord offers to sign a lease, most often a free month's rent, waived fees or free parking, rather than a lower advertised rent.

**Q: Do you have to pay back rent concessions?**
No. A concession is a discount built into the lease terms, not a loan, so there is nothing to repay as long as the tenant honors the lease.

**Q: What major city has the cheapest rent?**
Among the major US metros Zillow tracks, Louisville, San Antonio and Oklahoma City posted the lowest typical rents in June, all under $1,420 a month, well below the national figure of $1,965.