Data & Insights · Updated quarterly
North Carolina Rental Market Statistics
Rents, trends, vacancy, supply, and affordability for Raleigh, Durham & Charlotte — every figure sourced and dated, in one page.
How to use this page
This is a reference compilation of public data — Apartment List, Zillow, RentCafe/Yardi Matrix, the US Census Bureau, and CoStar-based brokerage reports — assembled and refreshed quarterly by a furnished-housing operator that lives in these markets. Sources are named inline and listed at the bottom; where methodologies disagree (they do), we show both figures and say why. Journalists and researchers: cite freely with attribution, and email us for the underlying table.
- $1,331–$1,375
- median asking rent across the three cities (Apartment List)
- −1.6% to −3.2%
- year-over-year change in new-lease rents
- 65.3%
- of Charlotte listings offering concessions — 2nd-highest in the US
- #1
- Raleigh: most rent-affordable major US metro (Zillow)
- ~18,000
- apartments under construction in Charlotte — 3rd-largest US pipeline
North Carolina's big three are renter's markets in 2026: new-lease rents are falling, two-thirds of listings offer concessions, and the construction wave that caused it is now cresting.
01 — Rent levels
What apartments rent for, city by city
Median asking rents on new leases (Apartment List, June–July 2026 reports). All three North Carolina markets sit essentially atthe national median — remarkable for metros posting some of the country's fastest population growth.
| Measure | Raleigh | Durham | Charlotte | US |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Median asking rent, new leases (Apartment List) | $1,370 | $1,331 | $1,375 | $1,385 |
| Average apartment rent, 50+ unit buildings (RentCafe/Yardi) | $1,575 | $1,532 | $1,675 | — |
| Typical rent, all home types, metro (Zillow ZORI, May 2026) | $1,694 | $1,703 | $1,740 | $1,951 |
| ACS median gross rent, 2020–2024 (Census — lags market) | $1,572 | $1,508 | $1,612 | $1,413 |
Why the spread? Apartment List tracks median asking rents on new leases; RentCafe averages larger professionally-managed buildings (skewing newer); Zillow's ZORI covers all rental home types including houses, metro-wide; Census ACS surveys what sitting tenants actually pay, with a multi-year lag.
02 — The trend
Rents are falling — on new leases
Year-over-year change in median new-lease rents (Apartment List, June–July 2026). Charlotte has now recorded eleven consecutive quartersof annual asking-rent declines (Matthews/CoStar, Q1 2026). Note the methodology split: Zillow's all-homes ZORI shows the same markets flat to slightly positive (Raleigh 0.0%, Charlotte +0.5%, Durham +1.0%) — the declines are concentrated in newly listed apartments, where the supply wave hit.
- Charlotte11th straight quarter of declines-3.2%
- Raleigh-2.4%
- Durham-1.6%
- North Carolina-2.0%
- United States-1.2%
Forecast: with 2026 deliveries in Raleigh-Durham dropping more than 60% from 2025's peak, Northmarq projects Triangle rents returning to ~1.5% growth in 2026 — the renter's window is real but closing.
03 — The renter's market
Concessions everywhere, vacancy elevated
In May 2026, 65.3% of Charlotte rental listings and 62.7% of Raleigh listings advertised a concession — free weeks, waived fees — among the highest shares in the nation and far above the 39.6% US figure (Zillow).
Vacancy tells the same story twice: the Census Bureau's household survey puts metro rental vacancy at 5.0% (Raleigh-Cary) and 6.7% (Charlotte) in Q1 2026 — while CoStar-based counts of institutional apartment buildings, where the new supply sits, run 10.9% (Raleigh), 11.2% (Durham), and 6.2% (Charlotte). New towers are competing hard for tenants; the broader rental stock is tighter.
Share of listings offering concessions
Zillow, May 2026
- Charlotte65.3%
- Raleigh62.7%
- United States39.6%
04 — Supply
The construction wave that made the market
Apartments under construction, Q1 2026
Matthews (Charlotte) · Lee & Associates (Raleigh, Durham)
- Charlotte metro3rd-largest US pipeline~18,000
- Raleigh market6,667
- Durham market4,176
Charlotte delivered roughly 12,400 apartments in the city in 2025 — second among US cities, behind only Austin — and its ~18,000-unit pipeline still ranks third nationally. Raleigh-Durham delivered 26,000+ units across 2024–25 combined.
The turn is here: Raleigh-Durham construction has fallen to a five-year low, with 2026 deliveries forecast at just ~5,100 units — down more than 60% — and Q1 2026 Charlotte starts totaled under 1,000 units. North Carolina is also a build-to-rent leader: 12,398 single-family rentals in the 2025 pipeline, fourth-most in the nation, over 5,300 of them in the Charlotte metro.
05 — Affordability & demand
Cheap rents, expensive growth
Zillow ranks Raleigh the most rent-affordable major metro in America: the typical rent takes 18.7% of the median income, and 94.8% of listings are affordable to a median-income household (#1 in the US; Charlotte manages 83.7%). Roughly half of each city rents — 49.3% of Raleigh households, 47.7% in Durham, 49.0% in Charlotte (Census ACS).
| Raleigh | Durham | Charlotte | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income (city) | $85,395 | $81,619 | $82,068 |
| Rent-to-income (ACS gross rent ÷ income) | 22.1% | 22.2% | 23.6% |
| Renter share of households | 49.3% | 47.7% | 49.0% |
| Metro population, July 2025 | 1,595,720 | 625,485 | 2,938,830 |
| Metro growth, 2024→2025 | +2.4% (#10 US rate) | +1.2% | +1.9% (#5 US numeric) |
Demand context: Charlotte added 20,731 residents in the year to July 2025 — the largest numeric gain of any US city — while Raleigh crossed the 500,000 mark. The rent declines above are a supply story, not a demand story.
06 — The furnished segment
Where furnished and corporate housing fits
No public source breaks out furnished rents for these three cities (we checked), but the national benchmarks: the median US corporate-housing rate ran $219/night (~$6,570/month equivalent) with a 30-day typical stay (ReloQuest/CHPA 2025 data), while industry surveys put an average US furnished one-bedroom near $3,300/month — roughly double the unfurnished median, in exchange for furniture, utilities, Wi-Fi, and no lease. Industry city tables place a Raleigh furnished one-bedroom at $2,600–$3,600/month. For the demand side of this market — who books furnished stays here, when, and why — see our decade-of-data companion study, the Triangle Furnished-Stay Report. For transparent operator pricing, see our cost guide.
Need a furnished month in one of these markets?
We own and operate furnished apartments in all three cities — booked direct, no platform markup, no annual lease.
Methodology & sources
Compiled July 2026 from public sources, shown with their methodology differences rather than blended: Apartment List city rent reports (median new-lease asking rents, June–July 2026); Zillow Observed Rent Index metro CSV + May 2026 Rent Report (concessions, affordability); RentCafe/Yardi Matrix average apartment rents (June 2026); US Census BureauACS 2020–2024 (incomes, renter shares, gross rents), Housing Vacancies & Homeownership Q1 2026, and Vintage 2025 population estimates; Matthews Charlotte multifamily Q1 2026 and Lee & Associates Raleigh-Durham Q1 2026 (CoStar-based vacancy and pipeline); Northmarq Raleigh-Durham Q1 2026 (deliveries forecast); Point2Homes/Yardi build-to-rent pipeline (2025); ReloQuest/CHPA corporate-housing benchmarks (2025). Census metro vacancy rates carry wide margins of error and are shown alongside CoStar-based multifamily figures, which cover a different universe. Next scheduled refresh: October 2026.
Cite this page: North Carolina Rental Market Statistics, Trifecta Corporate Housing, July 2026 — trifectacorporatehousing.com/research/nc-rental-market-statistics. Press and researchers can request the full sourced table at [email protected].