Report: Atlanta rents have been trending down for three straight months

Prospective renters of Atlanta may have seen fire-sale deals lately at new apartment hives from Cheshire Bridge to the heart of Midtown: free rent, and access to top-flight amenities, for one or even two months.

Could it be a sign the city’s long-booming apartment market is, like the weather, cooling off and bowing to oversupply? (After all, nearly 12,000 new rentals were expected to debut across metro Atlanta last year alone). Or is a lull nonexistent? New data by online rental hub Apartment List could suggest the former.

In Atlanta proper, rents that were surging not long ago have declined, on average, for three consecutive months, per January’s Apartment List rent report.

Granted, 2017 ended with Atlanta rents being 2.2 percent higher than a year prior. But the growth lagged the national average (3.4 percent growth) and that of Georgia at large (3.8 percent).

Like free-rent leasing offers, that could spell good things for ATL apartment and rental home dwellers who feel “cost-burdened.”

After declines beginning in September, the City of Atlanta’s median two-bedroom rent ($1,160) is now exactly on par with the national average, according to the analysis.

Other cities throughout the metro are seeing the opposite trend.

Marietta, for example, notched the highest year-over-year rent increases in the region at 6.5 percent. A median two-bedroom in the Cobb County seat will now set renters back $110 more monthly than Atlanta.

Here’s a broader perspective:

Apartment List

• Poll: Renters of Atlanta, how ‘cost-burdened’ are you right now? [Curbed]
• January 2018 Atlanta Rent Report [Apartment List]