MPF Research: Apartment market slowdown is here

​​HOUSTON – The city’s apartment market is showing "significant signs of weakening," says MPF Research, which has released a report that analyzes local apartment data from property management software RealPage.

MPF said that while market surveys of apartment rents continue to show rent growth, leasing data suggest a market slowdown.

​Lease applications between November and January were down 3.5 percent from the same period the year before, while lease renewals dropped 4.9 percent.

"To keep occupancy rates up, Houston apartment operators are issuing between one and two months of rent concessions in several submarkets," reports the Houston Business Journal. "As a result, new lease trade-outs, a measure of what a new renter pays compared with the previous renter of an apartment unit, has been stagnant in recent months, and lease revenue has fallen a slight 0.6 percent since August, according to MPF Research."​