- Renewal rates rose 5.3% at Essex, MAA and Vivmark and 3.6% at Camden in Q3, while new-lease rates fell at four of five apartment REITs, led by MAA’s 6.0% drop.
- Coastal-heavy Essex, UDR and Vivmark raised same-store revenue guidance. Sun Belt-focused Camden and MAA cut theirs, citing sticky concessions and a later-than-expected recovery.
- Northern California led and Denver lagged, and the group’s portfolios are changing through Vivmark’s merger, Camden’s California exit and UDR’s $2B Apollo venture.
Existing residents did the work for apartment REITs in the third quarter, while new-lease pricing stayed weak across the Sun Belt, according to a RealPage Analytics review of public REIT results. Guidance followed the geography: Essex, UDR and Vivmark boosted their same-store revenue targets, while Camden and MAA trimmed theirs.
RealPage looked at Camden, Essex, MAA, UDR and Vivmark Residential.
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Renewals Do the Heavy Lifting
Camden pushed renewals up 3.6%, while Essex, MAA and Vivmark each landed at 5.3%. UDR saw its best Q3 retention on record at 52%, and only 10.1% of MAA’s move-outs went to buying a home, an all-time low.
UDR CFO Dave Bragg pointed to ownership costs, saying residents are staying for reasons both cyclical and structural. MAA noted new and renewal rents have sat roughly $190 to $200 apart for a year, a modest sum next to the effort of moving.
New Leases Stay Negative
Four out of five REITs cut new-lease rates, by as little as 0.2% at Essex and as much as 6.0% at MAA. Vivmark bucked the trend with a 0.4% increase.
Camden CEO Alex Jessett said concessions are proving stubborn, driven by merchant builders that never planned to be long-term operators. MAA offers another lens: counting only leases where the outgoing tenant stayed one term, its decline this year is 1.9%, which it sees as a truer read on market rents.
Northern California vs. Denver
Northern California was the standout. Same-store NOI there rose 11.2% at Vivmark and 7.0% at Essex, while UDR’s new-lease rates gained 5.7% in its West region and lost 7.2% in the Southwest.
Denver was the drag, with Vivmark’s NOI sliding 9.6% and Camden and MAA each down about 7%. Camden also cited a local law that stopped it from charging residents for shared-area utilities.
Essex argues Northern California still has room, estimating rents could climb over 20% with flat wages before affordability reaches pre-COVID norms.
Portfolios Reshuffle
Vivmark posted its first results since AvalonBay and Equity Residential merged on Aug. 17, leaving it with 157,377 same-store homes. Management added $10 million to its merger synergy goal, now $135 million.
Michael Manelis, the COO, said the companies’ years apart worked like a long-running experiment in operating styles. Elsewhere, Camden sold 11 California communities for about $1.6 billion, closing July 29, and UDR teamed with Apollo on a $2 billion, 19-community venture.
Zoom Out
RealPage described a similar split after Q2, when, as we reported in August, renewals propped up REIT revenue while new-lease pricing stayed patchy and Sun Belt portfolios remained exposed to supply.
What is new is that the divide has reached guidance, not just lease rates.
Why It Matters
Sticky residents protect income, but deep discounts on new leases show supply is still the Sun Belt’s problem. MAA trimmed 2026 guidance after Q3 revenue slipped 0.4% and NOI fell 1.8%, per Multifamily Dive.
Both Sun Belt operators framed it as a timing issue. MAA expects new-lease pricing to recover later than it planned, and Camden called September softer than anticipated.
What’s Next
Q4 will show whether easing supply firms up Sun Belt revenue. MAA CEO Brad Hill said October pricing on new leases beat September, which runs against the normal seasonal pattern.
If completions keep falling and demand holds, Q4 results should reveal whether crowded metros are catching up to the coasts.
