When deciding between renting versus owning a home, many people focus on the cost differences to try to make the right choice. This can be frustrating, though, because housing prices can fluctuate quite a bit over the course of several months due to things like changes in interest rates, inflation, and housing supply. What you might not realize is prices for rental homes and apartments also fluctuate regularly because of things like seasonality and market conditions. Rental prices also depend significantly on the city where the unit is located.
One of the biggest recent drops in rental prices is occurring in one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the United States – Austin, Texas. According to Newsweek, estimated costs to rent a home or apartment in Austin dropped almost 6% from summer 2024 to summer 2025. This reduction left rental prices in Austin at their lowest levels since 2021. In the Apartment List National Rent Report for August 2025, the estimated year-over-year price decrease in Austin’s market was even higher at a 6.8% reduction, making it one of the U.S. cities where rent prices are falling the fastest.
The reduction in Austin’s prices differs from what’s happening in the United States as a whole. The estimates for rental cost increases for single-family units in 2025 compared to 2024 is plus-2.7% across the United States. However, that number represents a slowdown compared to the national average price increase from 2023 to 2024, which was 4.5%. Learn more about why Austin’s rental costs are bucking the national trend.
Why Is Austin’s Rental Market Seeing A Recent Year-Over-Year Decrease In Prices?
When it comes to determining the best city in Texas to live in, Austin always seems to rank highly. Significant population growth in the Austin metro area further shows its popularity, as the metro area grew by more than 50,000 residents from 2022 to 2023…