Published on Wednesday, April 22, 2026
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Secondary cities post rent growth above 3% even as U.S. averages slip.
In a year when many big-city landlords are cutting deals to keep apartments full, a handful of smaller markets are quietly pushing rents higher — and in some cases, far higher than the national average, according to RealPage Market Analytics. RealPage data show that 12 of the nation's roughly 100 secondary apartment markets — those with about 25,000 to 110,000 existing units — posted effective asking rent growth above 3% in the year ending March 2026, even as U.S. rents overall slipped slightly.
RealPage reports that, nationwide, effective asking rents declined 0.5% in the 12 months through March, underscoring how unusual these small-market gains are in the broader context. While rent growth over the past year tended to cluster in the Midwest and Northeast, cuts were more common across much of the South and West. Even so, RealPage notes that both the South and the West still managed to place two small markets each on the rent-growth leaderboard, alongside five in the Midwest and three in the Northeast.
At the top of that board is Urban Honolulu, which RealPage says led all small markets with a 7.1% annual increase in effective asking rents. That pace far outstrips both the national average and many larger coastal metros that only recently began to see rents stabilize after earlier declines. In the Midwest, Champaign-Urbana ranked second among small markets, registering a 5.8% year-over-year rent increase.
Some small markets are seeing both rent growth and new supply. Reno — one of the two small Western markets on the list — posted a 4.7% annual rent gain, even as its apartment inventory grew by 2.5% over the past year.
Portland–South Portland in the Northeast stands out for a similar reason: it was the only other market on RealPage's small-market leaderboard with notable inventory expansion, at 2.6%, yet still increased effective asking rents by 4.4% over the year. Those trends suggest that in at least some smaller metros, new deliveries have not been enough to offset demand.
In the South, rent performance has been more uneven. Cuts were common across the region, but Shreveport–Bossier City/Minden bucked that pattern with a 3.7% annual rent increase, leading the South's small markets on the list. Jackson was the only other Southern small market to qualify, with a 3.3% gain in effective asking rents over the year.
The RealPage analysis places these small-market results alongside performance in the country's largest apartment hubs. Among the 50 biggest U.S. markets, just five recorded annual rent growth above 3% in the year ending March.
San Francisco, which went through some of the steepest rent declines earlier in the pandemic and its aftermath, now tops the large-market list with an 8.9% annual rent increase. That comparison underscores the bifurcation in today's apartment market: a few standout coastal and tech-heavy metros are rebounding sharply, while a select group of smaller cities is quietly posting steady, above-average gains.
Taken together, RealPage's findings depict an apartment landscape that is far from uniform. Even as national averages show slight rent erosion and supply weighs on pricing in many fast-growing Sun Belt markets, certain secondary metros — from Urban Honolulu and Champaign-Urbana to Reno and Portland — are still managing to push rents meaningfully higher. For owners, lenders, and developers, the data highlight the importance of looking beyond headline national trends to the local dynamics driving performance in smaller but increasingly consequential markets.