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American renters got some price relief in February as the national median asking rent dipped to the lowest level in four years, with some metro areas seeing notable declines.
An analysis by Realtor.com found that the median asking rent for 0 to 2-bedroom properties in the 50 largest metro areas declined for the 30th consecutive month, with the metric falling $29, or 1.7%, compared to a year ago in February.
The median asking rent in those markets was $1,667 – down 5.1% from its peak in summer 2022 but still14.2% higher than its pre-pandemic level. All 50 metro areas analyzed in the report had median asking rents below their peak level.
Realtor.com found that there were 15 markets that had median asking rents down at least 10% from their peaks as of February 2026, as renters in those metro areas have seen the most significant relief since the pandemic era.
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The steepest decline in the median asking rent from the pandemic peak was in Austin, Texas, which had seen the rental price decline 18.2% from its peak and 7.1% year over year.
Birmingham, Alabama, ranked second with a 17.1% decline from the peak, while the median asking rent was down 3.4% from a year ago.
The Memphis, Tennessee, metro area has seen a 16.1% decline, which ranked as the third deepest, while the rent declined 3.8% from last year.
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Other cities in the Sun Belt were among those that saw the largest decline in median asking rent, with Phoenix, Arizona, down 15.6% from its peak including a 4.4% decrease from a year ago.
Atlanta was down 15.2% in February from the market’s peak, with prices down 2% from last year.
Las Vegas had similar figures, with a 14.8% decline in the median asking price from its peak and 1.8% from a year ago.
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San Diego has also seen a notable decline in the median asking rent from the pandemic peak, with it down 14.3% from its high and 3.7% from a year ago.
Five metro areas have seen much more modest declines in the median asking rent when compared with the pandemic-era peak.
The metro area with the smallest decrease as of February was Virginia Beach, Virginia, which was down just 1.7% from the peak – in part because the median rent rose 4.5% in the last year.
Kansas City was down 1.8% from the peak and had the median asking rent rise by 1% from a year ago, while Baltimore’s rental figure was down 2.4% from its peak and up 0.8% in the last year.
