Oregon Department of Administrative Services · on Oregon's 2027 statewide rent-increase cap
The Oregon Department of Administrative Services set the maximum allowable rent increase for calendar year 2027 at 10% for tenancies subject to ORS 90.324(b), up from 9.5% in 2026. The cap for manufactured-dwelling parks and marinas with more than 30 spaces is 6%. The statutory formula is the lesser of 10% or 7% plus CPI.
ORS 90.324 requires DAS to calculate and publish the following year's percentage no later than September 30 each year.
Apartment List · on the October 2026 national rent report
Apartment List reported the national median rent fell 0.1% in September to $1,388, the first monthly decline since January, and is down 0.4% from a year earlier after year-over-year growth bottomed at -1.6% in April. The national multifamily vacancy rate fell to 7% from a February peak of 7.3%, and units took an average of 34 days to lease. Among large metros, San Antonio posted the largest annual decline at -4.5% and the San Francisco metro the largest gain at +12%.
Apartment List's September rent declines averaged -0.5 percent from 2022 to 2025 and -0.3 percent from 2017 to 2019.
Ten state attorneys general, from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington, filed a response on September 15 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina opposing RealPage's argument that its settlement with the Justice Department moots the states' Sherman Act claims. RealPage had told the court the settlement reached at the end of 2025 resolved the same claims. The states wrote that none of the claims against RealPage, Camden or Pinnacle "have been rendered moot by the agreed-upon Final Judgment entered as a compromise between the United States and RealPage, to which the States are not parties."
The states sued alongside the federal government in the original DOJ antitrust case; the Justice Department settled with RealPage at the end of 2025 without the states joining.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a post on X that mass deportations have lowered rents in Sun Belt cities, listing San Antonio down 4.8 percent, Nashville down 5.3 percent and New Orleans down 8 percent, and telling readers to "support mass deportations" for a lower cost of living. Newsweek reported that DHS did not identify the source or methodology for the figures, and compared them with Zillow data showing New Orleans rent at $1,650, down $100 year-over-year, and San Antonio at $1,600, down $80. Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather said reducing immigrant labor supply "tends to raise building costs and slow new home production."
Apartment List's August national report put the median rent at $1,390, down 0.8% from a year earlier.
Citing data from the real estate research site Mover Math, the Columbian reported Camas renters pay a median gross rent of $2,090, $60 above Seattle's $2,030, and the Lake Shore neighborhood $2,241, though both areas have median household incomes above $130,000. Vancouver's median gross rent of $1,702 exceeded Portland's $1,655 while its median household income of $81,338 trailed Portland's roughly $91,000 and Seattle's $123,860. The data showed 48 percent of Vancouver renters and 29 percent of homeowners are cost-burdened.
A household is counted as cost-burdened if it spends more than 30 percent of monthly income on housing; Camas is an incorporated city, and the Lake Shore figure is the unincorporated example.
The Journal reported that rents for income-restricted affordable housing in Portland are growing faster than prices for market-rate apartments. The article's subheading says the city has rarely "seen such a narrow price gap between market-rate and affordable units."
Portland Tribune · on Multnomah County rent, hardship and property-tax figures
The Tribune reported figures from the Ford Family Foundation's "Oregon By the Numbers" comparison of the state's 36 counties, including an average rental cost of $1,776 for a one-bedroom, one-bath unit in Multnomah County — a five-way tie with Yamhill, Washington, Columbia and Clackamas counties. The report said 44% of the county's households have experienced financial hardship, and put average property taxes at $2,837 per owner, above the statewide average of $2,087.
The data comes from the Ford Family Foundation's annual "Oregon By the Numbers" report covering all 36 Oregon counties.
An Urban Institute report found nearly 22 percent of middle-income renters said they could not pay the full amount of rent when it was due at least once in 2025, up from about 14 percent the year before — the largest increase of any income bracket in the institute's annual Well-Being and Basic Needs Survey. Nearly 28 percent of lower-income renters reported being unable to pay for housing sometime during 2025, up from around 24 percent in 2019, and about 7 percent of the highest-bracket renters missed at least one payment. Co-author Samantha Batko said the middle-income shift raises "potential implications for inflow to homelessness."
The Urban Institute defines middle-income renters as adults making between $31,300 and $62,600 for a single-person household or between $53,300 and $106,600 for a family of three.
Portland City Council's Housing and Permitting Committee, chaired by Candace Avalos, held its first Renters' Feedback Forum. The Portland Housing Bureau reports that about half of Portland renters are cost-burdened, spending more than 30% of their income on housing, and about one-quarter spend more than half their income on housing. Renters told the committee the city should intervene before missed rent becomes an eviction.
The council's Keep Portland Housed package, approved in April, allocated nearly $56 million in previously unbudgeted Portland Housing Bureau funds, including $5 million for short-term rent assistance.
Bureau of Labor Statistics · on August CPI shelter and rent figures
BLS reported the CPI-U rose 0.4% in August on a seasonally adjusted basis, after a 0.1% rise in July, with the all-items index up 3.4% over the last 12 months. The shelter index rose 0.3% in August and 3.0% over the year, and the indexes for rent and owners' equivalent rent each rose 0.2% for the month.
The September CPI is scheduled for release October 14 at 8:30 a.m. ET.
The American Economic Liberties Project released a case study of institutional ownership of single-family rentals in Phoenix, which it identified as the country's second-largest market for corporate-owned single-family rentals after Atlanta. The report estimated 13–14 percent of Phoenix single-family rentals, roughly 33,000 to 72,000 homes, are investor owned, with Invitation Homes holding approximately 9,200 properties, and said Phoenix accounts for more than 40 percent of build-to-rent units constructed in the Western U.S. The report's recommendations include Arizona's HB 2325, which would cap institutional investors at 50 single-family homes statewide.
The FTC reached a $48 million settlement with Invitation Homes in September 2024 over allegations involving deceptive lease costs and hidden fees.
Zillow reported that Buffalo, Chicago, and Houston posted the largest year-over-year growth in rental searches originating outside their metros, followed by New Orleans and Dallas, and that out-of-town searches now outnumber local ones in Salt Lake City, Raleigh, Hartford, and Nashville. Zillow chief economist Mischa Fisher said growing out-of-town rental search share indicates "a developing pipeline" of future in-migration, and CNBC noted rental demand is typically a leading indicator of home sales. The markets drawing the most renter interest have median home prices below the July national median of $434,100 reported by the National Association of Realtors.
Apartment List reported August rents rose month over month for the first time in four years while remaining slightly below August 2025 levels.
A TRD Data analysis of the Census Bureau's most recent five-year American Community Survey estimates found 47.6 percent of U.S. renters spend at least 30 percent of their income on rent, a rise of nearly 2 percentage points from 2020 to 2024. Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach ranked first among metros, with almost 61 percent of renters spending about a third or more of their income on rent.
Spending 30 percent or more of income on housing is the federal government's standard definition of cost burden.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition published the March 2026 edition of its annual report, "The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes." The report counts rental homes affordable to the lowest-income renters and compares that supply against the number of such households. Extremely low-income households, it reports, account for nearly one fourth of the nation's 46 million renter households. Nationally, 7.2 million rental units are affordable to the 11 million extremely low-income renter households, but 3.4 million of those units are occupied by higher-income households, leaving 3.8 million units both affordable and available — a shortage of 7.2 million homes, or 35 affordable and available homes per 100 extremely low-income renter households. The figure cited in yesterday's edition via the AP, roughly 4 million affordable units available for 11 million households, corresponds to the report's 3.8 million affordable-and-available count.
The analysis is based on the 2024 American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample, an annual Census Bureau survey of approximately 3.5 million addresses. "Extremely low-income" means a household income at or below the federal poverty guideline or 30% of area median income, whichever is higher — a threshold that varies by geography. "Affordable" means rent and utilities that do not exceed 30% of a given income threshold, and units are categorized by the income needed to afford them without regard to the incomes of current tenants. The report's operative measure is "affordable and available": units that are affordable at an income level and either vacant or not occupied by a higher-income household. That distinction is what separates the 7.2 million units affordable to extremely low-income renters from the 3.8 million actually open to them. Units without complete kitchens or plumbing are excluded from the supply count.
The shortage corresponds to high housing cost burdens for this group. Per the report, 87% of extremely low-income renter households spend more than 30% of income on rent and utilities, and 74% spend more than half. Extremely low-income households account for 68% of all severely cost-burdened renters while making up about a quarter of renter households.
Across recent editions the headline figures have moved within a narrow band. The March 2024 edition, based on 2022 data, reported a shortage of 7.3 million homes and 34 affordable and available homes per 100 extremely low-income households; the March 2025 edition, based on 2023 data, reported 10.9 million extremely low-income households, a shortage of 7.1 million, and a ratio of 35; the current edition reports 7.2 million and 35. The national ratio spans wide state variation: from 16 affordable and available homes per 100 extremely low-income renter households in Nevada to 73 in South Dakota, with no state reaching parity.
The headline number is a count of rental homes relative to households, and the report states several things it does not capture. The ACS is a survey of addresses and does not include people experiencing homelessness; the report calls its own shortage figure understated on that basis, noting that 771,480 people were counted homeless on a single night in 2024 and that including their housing needs would raise the shortage to nearly 7.8 million. It also cites an outside estimate of 3.7 million individuals in doubled-up situations whose needs are not in its figures. The measure is affordability at fixed income thresholds, not housing condition — units lacking complete kitchens or plumbing are dropped from supply, but physical adequacy is not otherwise assessed — and the report notes that a residual-income approach would classify more households as burdened than the 30%-of-income standard it uses.
NLIHC's March 2025 edition of The Gap, based on 2023 data, reported a shortage of 7.1 million affordable and available rental homes for 10.9 million extremely low-income renter households.
Newsweek · on Corcoran's July 2026 Manhattan rental market report
Real estate brokerage Corcoran reported that Manhattan's median rent reached $5,295 in July, its highest level on record, up 6 percent from a year earlier. Average monthly rents were $4,088 for a studio, $5,486 for a one-bedroom, $8,054 for a two-bedroom and $12,228 for a three-bedroom. Rental inventory was down 22 percent compared with July 2025.
Federal Register · on the FY 2027 Fair Market Rents
HUD published the FY 2027 Fair Market Rents, which set voucher payment-standard baselines and take effect October 1; comments are due the same day. The notice implements a methodology change replacing the discontinued CPI housing fuels and utilities index with a weighted composite of four utility components — electricity, natural gas, fuel oil, and water/sewer/trash — in the gross-rent inflation factors. The notice does not state a national average percentage change.
PHAs requesting reevaluation of their area's FY 2027 FMRs must supply supporting data to HUD by January 8, 2027.
Apartment List · on the August 2026 national rent report
Apartment List reported that the national median rent rose 0.1% in August to $1,390, the seventh consecutive monthly increase, while rents remained down 0.8% from August 2025. The national multifamily vacancy index fell to 7.1%, its first decline since late 2021, and the firm said San Francisco and San Jose posted the nation's fastest year-over-year metro rent growth at +11% and +7.9%.
The firm's vacancy index peaked at 7.3% in February 2026, the highest level since its tracking began in 2017.
Realtor.com's July 2026 Rental Report found buying a starter home cost $858 more per month than renting one across the 50 largest metros, with the gap as small as $19 in Orlando. The median listing price of a 0- to 2-bedroom starter home fell 2.9% year over year in July while rents declined 1.4%, and mortgage rates averaged 6.54% in July, down from 6.72% a year earlier. The report named Oklahoma City, Orlando, Seattle, Miami, Tampa, Las Vegas, and Nashville as metros where starter prices fell faster than rents while wages grew at least as fast as the 3.8% national rate.
Realtor.com's Market Clock found 70% of the 100 largest metros now favor buyers or are moving in that direction, up from 52% a year ago.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the July all-items Consumer Price Index rose 0.1% from June and 3.4% year over year, down from June's 3.5% annual increase. The shelter index rose 0.1% for the month — which BLS said accounted for roughly two-thirds of the monthly all-items increase — and 3.2% from a year earlier, with the rent and owners' equivalent rent indexes each up 0.3% for the month.
The all-items index had fallen 0.4% month over month in June.
Zillow's July Market Report put the typical U.S. rent at $1,962, up 2.3% from a year earlier, with 39.8% of rental listings offering a concession, up from 36% a year earlier. Home sales rose 7% year over year — what the report called "the strongest annual gain of the year" — while newly pending listings grew 0.3% from a year ago and fell 7.7% from June. For-sale inventory stood 1.5% above year-ago levels, a 32-month streak of supply gains.
Zillow's August Market Report is scheduled for release September 8.