New units that still need to lease-up total 612,000 units nationally. That’s down from the peak of 827,000 units in December 2024, but it’s still about 85,000 units above the baseline from five years ago.
New completions in 2026 are estimated to total about 300,000 units. That’s manageable compared to the 10-year average annual absorption of 350,000 units, but if you add the “excess lease-up” units still to work through, that takes us into 2027 before we catch up … and that’s assuming a normalized absorption rate, which isn’t a given.
Source: Jay Parsons
Multifamily Market News 