10 to 11 leases per month
Typical pace for a lease-up community in mid-2024, down from the year before even as overall demand grew.
Source: RealPage Analytics
Learn · Run a lease-up
Run a lease-up
New communities start with no name, no reviews and no search history, often next to other lease-ups offering specials. The plan below covers what to set up first, how to budget around a realistic pace, and how to use concessions without giving away more rent than you need to.
Start here · 6 min readThe lease-up playbookFrom coming-soon to stabilized: what to set up first, how to plan around a realistic pace, and how to use concessions deliberately.Read the playbook
Free tools
Free worksheet · Excel
Lease-up pace planner
How many leases a month it takes to hit your occupancy target by your date, and the gap from today's pace.
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Free worksheet · Excel
What a concession really costs
Turn weeks free into dollars, net effective rent and a cost you can compare with marketing.
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The numbers
49%
Share of new apartments leased within three months of completion, for buildings finished in the fourth quarter of 2025 (Census data analyzed by NAHB).
Source: NAHB Eye on Housing (analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data)
41 days
Median list-to-lease time hit a record high in January 2026, in data going back to 2019.
Source: Apartment List
24.6%
About a quarter of apartments offered a concession in the second quarter of 2026, and the average concession was worth 7.6%.
Source: RealPage Analytics
All the statistics, with sources
Straight answers
- Do concessions speed up a lease-up?They can help a lease-up compete, especially when nearby communities are also discounting, but they reduce effective rent, so use them deliberately and measure the result.
- How common are apartment concessions right now?Common, though the exact share depends on whose data you use: recent reports range from about 16% of stabilized apartments to about 40% of listings on one major site.
- How big are typical apartment concessions?RealPage reported an average December 2025 discount of 10.5%, and one operator told NAA high-delivery markets are seeing concessions of, for example, one to two months.
- How long does a lease-up take?It depends on size, market and competing supply, but plan conservatively: RealPage reported in 2024 that the average lease-up community was executing about 10 to 11 leases per month.
- How quickly are new apartments being rented after completion?Less than half within three months: Census data reported by NAHB shows 49% of apartments completed in the fourth quarter of 2025 were absorbed within three months.