74% of Rental Listings Affordable for Median-Income Buyers in May

Seattle, WA, June 22, 2026—In May, 74% of rental listings were affordable to a median-income household, the highest share for the month since at least 2021 as a record wave of apartment construction continues to ripple through the market, reports Zillow.

After setting records during the pandemic, rent price growth has cooled since 2022, in large part due to a multifamily construction boom that reached a 50-year high in 2024. Builders reacted to strong housing demand during the pandemic and took advantage of borrowing costs that were still low. More apartments mean more options and less competition for any single unit, slowing rent growth and allowing incomes to catch up. The typical rent nationwide is up just 2% from a year ago, or $39 per month, according to the Zillow May Rental Report.

That figure of 74% of affordable rental listings is the highest for any May in Zillow’s data, which dates to 2021. This means a median-income household would spend no more than 30% of its income on nearly 3 out of 4 available rentals, within the generally accepted threshold for affordable housing. While income growth is doing a lot of the work to boost this number, the share of rentals on Zillow listed for less than $1,000 per month climbed to 8.8%, also the highest for any May since 2022 — a sign that more units at the lower end of the market are becoming available.

“More supply on the market means more choices, and more choices mean landlords have to compete on price and incentives,” said Kara Ng, senior economist at Zillow. “The combination of cooling rents and rising incomes has quietly moved the affordability needle in a meaningful way. The open question is how long it lasts. The construction boom that drove affordability gains has slowed, and rent growth could firm up again in the months ahead.”

The gains are most pronounced in the multifamily rental segment, where 79.4% of May listings on Zillow were affordable to a median-income household, up from 75.5% a year ago. Single-family rentals are also seeing a rising share of affordable homes, perhaps surprising because those rents have generally grown faster in recent years, in part because of increased demand from households priced out of buying their first home. Nearly half of single-family listings on Zillow (47.3%) were affordable in May, up from 44.9% at this time last year.