You won't see them go down really, but you will see them level out and stabilize. I remember a stretch of time with lease renewal seasons with no increases and money off concession bonus if they renewed by a certain time. I have see a lot of concessions they were not and upfront concession but spread out over the lease term to "reduce the rent".

What they said ^^! In mid 2006 market was peaked high like it is now. By 2008 all the people who overextended themselves by having no choice to rent/buy above their means bailed/skipped/moved back home and people slowed migrating to Florida but apartments were all underwritten/refinanced at such high rates they used concessions to avoid “lowering the rent roll” but they got so out of hand, 2-2.5 months free… and then there was no control to stop it in the market so it lasted too long to get value back to true rent roll starting point. Curious to see if it’s handled better this time around with many sites on revenue management programs if property owners permit it to “do it’s thing” and react when demand starts to slow or if the concession game is inevitably returning! Hope it’s not the latter

In 2008 there was also a supply/demand issue where the market was flooded with too many homes on the market. This seemd to also affect the rental rates and people were so afraid of the economy in general, that they were afraid to move.

In the apartment industry we refer to that as a concessionary market. The market rent doesn't drop but the actual rent is adjusted downward using concessions. (1 month free for example, pro-rated over the life of the lease). We were offering the same concessions to existing residents as new residents in 2008 and on until the market recovered allowing for stabilized occupancy of 95% or above, reducing turnover to aid the recovery.

One of my favorite memories while working for my dad managing his apartments was when he paid off the mortgage on one of his 18-unit buildings and he let me write a rent reduction letter to all the tenants! It was so fun.

I've had rents go down on renewal. If you set your renewal prices at market rent and the market rent goes down, the renewal goes down. This is rare and only happens in a weak market, which I've been through, where an apartment sits vacant-ready for weeks before somebody rents it.