The rental market pendulum within the better Nashville area is swinging again in favor of the renter. Ever so barely.
Months after residents skilled all-time highs, the common hire for a one-bedroom condo is now at $1,582, in line with ApartmentData.com, which tracks costs in a dozen main cities throughout the Sunbelt area. Hire is greater in Nashville’s city core, the Nashville Downtown Partnership discovered, at $2,382 for a median condo of 811 sq. toes.
Over the previous 12 months, rents are down about 0.8% within the Nashville area, leaving luxury-brand landlords extra keen to supply new tenants reductions and different concessions — as a lot as 4 months free hire.
“It’s a greater transfer to have any individual dwelling in that house who can completely afford to pay the hire in month three, 4 or 5,” stated Joel Sanders of Residence Insiders.
A brief glut of housing delivered in late 2022 and into 2023 is partly the explanation for the dip in rental-rate progress, stated Bruce McClenny of MRI Software program’s ApartmentData.com. He additionally stated renters are shifting out of cities in favor of the suburbs. In Center Tennessee, residents are more and more selecting to reside in Gallatin, Spring Hill, La Vergne and different booming counties surrounding Nashville.
“What we’re seeing now’s adverse hire progress,” McClenny stated.
Davidson County’s inhabitants dropped 1.1% from April 1, 2020, to July 1, 2022, whereas surrounding counties continued to develop quickly.
Nonetheless, the rental market in downtown Nashville remains to be rising, with 6,000 new models underneath development and plenty of extra deliberate. Greater than 16,000 residents are anticipated to develop to past 40,000 in 2030, in line with Nashville Downtown Partnership.
Nashville close to the highest in new models
A current report by RentCafe estimated rental condo development within the U.S. from 2020 to 2022 produced 1.2 million new models. Nashville was close to the entrance of the pack.
Two-thirds of the newly constructed flats are concentrated in 20 high-growth metro areas scattered throughout the nation. By way of 2023 unit deliveries, Nashville ranks at No. 15 out of 20 with 8,977 models anticipated to be accomplished this yr alone.

Since 2020, the Nashville metro space has seen greater than 21,000 new condo models unveiled, in line with the RentCafe estimate.
In 2020, 6,783 models have been delivered.
In 2021, 7,067 flats opened.
In 2022, the full reached 7,398.
New flats imply extra competitors for present flats and extra choices for renters.
And the nationwide development growth shouldn’t be over. RentCafe estimates one other 1 million models will probably be accomplished throughout the nation earlier than the top of 2025.
Decrease occupancy results in massive concessions
Free hire is the preferred concession for landlords trying to fill models. McClenny stated occupancy charges this summer season have hovered round 91%, which he stated is a sign of a market in favor of renters.
Sanders of Residence Insiders stated some flats are providing weeks, even months of hire totally free with a purpose to safe leases in some models.
Concessions all the time include some form of phrases. The most important offers, for instance, might solely be obtainable on choose floorplans or lease phrases. However it may well nonetheless make a distinction for renters.
For instance, Albion within the Gulch is providing two months free on choose models. Queens, a mixed-use growth in Wedgewood-Houston, is providing eight weeks free. And 1200 Broadway is promoting one month free on all models with 12- or 13-month leases.
The underside line for landlords, Sanders defined, is getting a tenant signed to a lease as rapidly as attainable. Emptiness comes at an enormous price.
“You realize what your loss is,” Sanders stated. “You’ll be able to sew up the wound a bit of bit. You know the way a lot you needed to divulge to safe that lease.”
Based on ApartmentData.com estimates, almost one out of 4 models within the metropolis (24%) provide hire concessions, with a median price lower of 6.6%.
Specials are concentrated in Class A or luxurious housing. Estimates present 43% of Class A housing provides some form of concession, with a median low cost of simply over two months free.
“Residents in Nashville aren’t interested by being nickeled and dimed,” Sanders stated. “With all this luxurious product, folks nonetheless desire a whole lot.”
‘Optimize their lives’: Demand for more room persists
The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the housing market within the U.S. However whereas some short-term impacts have normalized lately, one pattern persists, in line with specialists.
Renters and householders alike are going for bigger floorplans and extra outside house. For some, which means shifting farther outdoors cities to have the ability to afford house for teenagers, pets, dwelling places of work and extra.

Actually, one of many fastest-growing regional cities is Columbia, a half-hour south of Franklin.
Common rents for a three-bedroom dwelling in Columbia have grown greater than 20% since July 2022, in line with Jonas Bordo, CEO of Dwellsy, a web-based rental market. The mid-sized Tennessee metropolis is No. 4 on Dwellsy’s checklist of the quickest rising three-bedroom single household rental markets within the nation.
Different cities rounding out the highest 4 on that checklist embrace Anderson, Indiana; Lawton, Oklahoma; and Lynchburg, Virginia.
Bordo stated this rating exhibits two traits working in tandem. Persons are selecting to reside farther away from the middle of metro areas as a result of they’ve been in a position to make money working from home a number of days per week. Additionally, they need the advantages of dwelling in a rising area with city-like facilities whereas not sacrificing perks reminiscent of giant yards, bedrooms and good costs.
Thus, demand for bigger leases in smaller cities persists close to regional hubs.
“Of us are attempting to optimize their lives,” Bordo stated. “They’re battling lengthy commutes, in order that they’d moderately make money working from home. They realized they will get more room for a similar sum of money.”