Apartment Construction Surge Levels Off After Two-Year Boom

After years of staying below a longstanding ceiling for new apartment supply, the U.S. multifamily market surged past it — and then, just as quickly, began losing momentum.

Since 2020, quarterly completions had been capped at around 100,000 units, a threshold that was never reached through early 2023. Then, in the second quarter of 2023, deliveries broke through for the first time since RealPage Market Analytics began tracking the sector in the 1990s. That milestone set off a run of growth that lasted 10 straight months, with every quarter exceeding 100,000 units. By the third quarter of 2025, completions totaled 105,525 units.

From Q2 2023 through Q4 2024, quarterly supply not only stayed above the 100,000 mark but also logged consistent year-over-year increases, according to RealPage. There was also a steady quarter-over-quarter climb through Q3 2024. But in 2025, the trend reversed sharply. Q4 2024 completions fell from Q3 levels, Q1 2025 dropped again and Q2 sank further. Meanwhile, Q3 2025 saw a modest uptick from the previous three months but failed to approach the peaks of the previous year.

Regionally, the South has continued to dominate new supply, accounting for 53,410 units in Q3 2025 — more than half the national total. Still, the slowdown there has been the most pronounced. Deliveries in the South reached 92,100 units in Q3 2024, then declined every quarter since. The West followed a similar trajectory, peaking that same quarter at 37,400 units and sliding to about 25,000 in Q2 2025, then rising slightly to 26,900 in Q3. In the Midwest, the third quarter brought just 12,100 new units, below the region’s ten-year average. The Northeast delivered 13,100 units.