In what appears to be a welcome sign for renters, single-family rents increased just 1.1% year over year in February, the slowest pace of national growth since 2010, according to new data released by Cotality.
“This increase is a pronounced slowdown in pace from the 2.6% increase we saw between February 2024 and 2025, and it is one-third of the pre-2020 average of 3.3%,” the real estate analytics firm pointed out in its latest monthly single-family rental index, updated Friday.
Rent deceleration has been ongoing across the single-family rental sector after spiking during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the ongoing slowdown, rent levels remain historically elevated, exerting varying impacts across the single-family rental market.
The change is not being felt equally by all.
“The widening affordability gap is putting more pressure on lower-income renters,” the report stated, “while higher-income renters are better able to absorb rising costs.” But the February report also noted that deceleration is “becoming less widespread,” with fewer metros recording rent declines over the year than in January.
Rents for higher-priced units rose 2% over the year in February, down from 3.1% over the prior year, continuing to demonstrate their resilience compared to other price tiers. Lower-priced rents increased 0.4% annually in February, a softening from 2% growth a year ago.
Geographically, regional heavyweights that largely dominated metro-level rent growth last year have maintained their momentum in early 2026. Chicago and Philadelphia rents led year-over-year growth in February, both increasing 4.8% annually.
Detroit, New York and Washington, D.C., rounded out the top five cities for rent growth, though only Philadelphia and Detroit posted higher annual growth than a year earlier. Rent growth for detached rentals was 0.8%, while attached rentals saw a 0.5% increase.
Throughout 2025, stalling rents and rising vacancies across the single-family investor market have emerged as first-order effects from a post-pandemic recalibration driving regionalization and fragmentation across national housing trends. Investors who purchase or rehabilitate homes for rentals remained a crucial segment of the purchase market, accounting for about 30% of home sales last year, per Cotality data.
The sector has been thrust into the national housing spotlight in 2026 by recent Trump administration proposals to curtail the activity of build-to-rent single-family investors, derailing housing legislation with major bipartisan backing.
Major housing and home building trade groups pulled their support for the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which was in the process of reconciliation between the Senate and House of Representatives, in response to the administration’s late inclusion, framed as nonnegotiable for the president to sign the broader bill.
Expanding the supply of single-family rentals through newly built units avoids turning existing homes into rentals, hurting inventory levels for owner-occupants as the single-family construction sector faces its own prolonged contraction.
Net new single-family rental supply would bring relief to the historically high single-family rents Cotality tracks, taking rent pressure off of other areas of the rental market. Economic or policy developments that may limit new supply of single-family rentals could firm up price trends as longer-term supply-demand dynamics shift.
