IE apartment rents turn up as new construction falls 27%

Citrus Belt Review: Inland Empire apartment rents rose 1.1% in the first quarter, the first gain after two consecutive quarterly declines, according to Northmarq's Q1 market report. The turn comes with vacancy still running 80 basis points above a year ago — a hangover from a delivery wave that outran renter demand for two years.

The glut was real but narrow. Northmarq's data show vacancy topped 5% in late 2025 for the first time since 2011, and average asking rents slipped below $2,000 a month in the fourth quarter. Nearly all of the damage landed on new Class A product; Class B and C vacancy ended Q1 at just 4.2%, roughly 100 basis points above long-term norms. CBRE's Q1 figures show where the supply concentrated: 210 of the quarter's 260 new units delivered in the Ontario/Chino submarket alone.

Now the tap is closing. About 2,900 units are scheduled to deliver across the IE in 2026, a 27% cut from 2025, while the market absorbed roughly 3,000 units over the past year — deliveries and demand nearly matched for the first time this cycle. Northmarq forecasts a 1.3% rent gain for the full year, modest but directionally significant after two years of declines.

The IE story is the national story compressed. At June's NAREE conference, National Multifamily Housing Council research head Caitlin Sugrue Walter described the sector as being at the tail end of a historic completion wave, with permits falling and supply set to slow further through 2027. The IE hit its vacancy peak, took its Class A losses, and reached supply-demand balance on the same clock. The open variable is logistics employment — the region's main driver of apartment demand — where port-driven hiring remains uneven under current trade conditions. If warehouse hiring rebounds, the recovery firms up faster than the forecasts say.