After seven straight months of falling asking rents to close out 2025, Sacramento apartment rents have now risen for four consecutive months on a month-over-month basis, according to CoStar. Occupancy in the region has held in the mid-90s throughout the recovery, with Colliers reporting a 95.4% rate in the first quarter of 2026 alongside 577 units of positive net absorption, the market’s first sustained demand gain after two straight negative quarters.
That turnaround stands out against a national multifamily backdrop where Sun Belt metros are still digesting a wave of pandemic-era construction. It also marks a reversal for Sacramento itself. Rents there fell 1.7% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2025, the market’s first negative reading since late 2023, as nearly 9,000 market-rate units delivered between 2022 and 2024 outpaced renter demand, according to Colliers’ research.
The clearest explanation for the reversal is supply, not demand. Developers pulled back sharply once the oversupply hit: Colliers projects roughly 952 units delivering in Sacramento in all of 2026, a 72% decline from the prior year’s pace. Fewer new units competing for tenants gives existing landlords more pricing power, even without a matching surge in renter demand. RealPage’s forecast, cited in Colliers’ first-quarter report, expects occupancy to ease only modestly to 94.6% by early 2027, alongside a still-modest 1.0% annual rent growth rate, a recovery defined by restraint rather than a boom…