Rental Activity Set to Heat Up This Summer Amid Affordability Crunch, Slow Home Sales

For years, summer has been considered the real estate industry’s unofficial peak season, and hard data backs the anecdotal claims.

New insights from RentSpree, drawing from tens of thousands of tenant screening reports nationwide, show that the seasonal spike in rental activity is also regional — and in some areas, it’s dramatic.

According to RentSpree’s latest analysis, tenant screenings in July are 53.5 percent higher than in December, and 22 percent above the monthly average. The reasons are intuitive and include school breaks, job relocations and lease expirations, which all converge during summer months, creating a wave of renters on the move.

But what’s striking isn’t just when rental activity surges — it’s where it has the most effect. The District of Columbia leads the nation, with a nearly 68 percent increase in tenant screenings during summer, compared to the rest of the year. Following closely are Virginia (46 percent), Illinois (42.3 percent), and North Carolina (40 percent).

What these places have in common is a concentration of major employment centers, large student populations, and a significant number of leases that turn over mid-year. In D.C., for example, internships, political appointments and academic schedules all collide during the warmer months — and 25 percent of all annual rental activity takes place in just June and July.

At the city level, the patterns are even more pronounced. Katy, Texas, a Houston suburb, sees an 87.3 percent increase in screenings during summer. Suburbs like Falls Church, Va., (85.4 percent) and Aliso Viejo, Calif., (83 percent) suggest that many families coordinate moves around school calendars and prioritize settling into a new home before the next academic year starts.

Demand spikes are just one symptom of an overheated market. The speed with which places are renting out is another. Between April and June, it takes an average of less than 16 days from listing to first tenant report, according to RentSpree data.

This year, those windows could be even tighter. Elevated mortgage rates and persistent home price appreciation continue to push many would-be buyers toward the rental market. As of March, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate hovered around 6.82 percent, according to Freddie Mac (FMCC). Simultaneously, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index showed home prices rose 6.6 percent year-over-year in January, marking one of the largest annual gains since 2022.

This affordability squeeze is reshaping consumer behavior, according to Redfin research. One in five renters now say they’ve postponed plans to buy a home indefinitely due to costs, the highest share recorded since the company began tracking the sentiment in 2019.

In short, the demand for rental housing, already heightened by seasonal patterns, is being amplified by larger macroeconomic drivers.

These trends go beyond a summer surge, but point to a broader recalibration in the U.S. housing market. As affordability pressures persist and homeownership becomes increasingly out of reach for many, renting is increasingly a long-term reality for a growing share of those living in the U.S.

Michael Lucarelli is the CEO and co-founder of RentSpree.