Key Points:
Denver leads the nation in rental concessions, with 68% of properties listed for rent on Zillow offering some type of move-in special.
The average property listed for rent across the Denver metro is down roughly $200, or about 10%, from a year ago, with nearly all of that decline concentrated in multifamily.
To rent a vacant property right now, owners need to make sure the home shows well, price it aggressively, and consider a move-in incentive, even on single family homes.
If you are a housing provider in Colorado and you own a rental property that is vacant, or will be soon, it is important to understand what is happening right now with tenant demand and the concessions landlords are offering to attract applicants.
Every day at Grace Property Management we receive calls from property owners and investors who are considering hiring us, and the conversation often starts the same way: “I am having trouble finding a tenant for my vacant property. Can you help?” That is what we do, but it helps to first understand why this is a somewhat unusual moment for supply and demand in the Colorado rental market.
Denver Leads the Nation in Concessions
A concession is anything a landlord offers on top of the advertised rent to attract an applicant. It might be $100 off, a month of free rent, a free ski pass, or an Amazon gift card. Not only are rents coming down, but concessions like these are becoming more and more common.
Zillow recently published data on concessions across the country, and of all the cities in the United States, the one that leads the nation is Denver, Colorado. According to Zillow, 68% of vacant properties listed for rent in Denver are offering some type of move-in special or concession.
This is not new. Denver has been near the top of this list for a while, and it continues to lead the nation for a simple reason: the metro area is having trouble filling all of the vacancies it has.
What the Zillow Listing Data Shows
Zillow is a good database for looking at what is currently listed for rent, so we pulled the numbers at the time of recording (late August 2026).
Across the entire Denver metro, there were about 4,600 properties listed for rent, including single family homes, condos, and townhomes. The average asking price was right around $2,000 per month. That figure was unchanged month over month, but year over year the average property listed for rent has come down by almost $200, which is roughly a 10% reduction in rental rates over the last 12 months.
Keep in mind that these are properties that have not yet rented. Their owners are still trying to find a tenant, and many of them will likely have to come down a bit further in price before the property actually rents.
When you separate single family from multifamily, the story changes.
Single family. There were a little under 1,600 single family homes listed for rent, and asking rents were somewhat higher than the metro average. The interesting part is that the year over year change in single family asking rents was zero. They have not gone up, but they have not really come down either. Single family is holding steady because there is more demand and less supply of single family homes in the suburban areas.
Multifamily. This category covers anything that is not a standalone single family home, whether that is a duplex or a single unit in a condo complex. There were about 3,000 of these listed for rent in Denver, and the year over year price change on these listings was down $165. This is where the 10% metro-wide reduction is really coming from.
Multifamily Concessions Are Accelerating
The Apartment Association of Metro Denver recently shared a statistic on concessions in the multifamily space, and Greystar has shared similar data. Their concession history goes all the way back to 2004, and it shows that in just the last quarter, concessions jumped from around 4% of annual rent to 8%, and now sit at about 10%. In other words, roughly 10% of a year’s rent is now being given away in concessions on multifamily properties.
What does 10% look like in practice? We pulled an advertisement for a brand new construction rental community in Denver. It is a beautiful property, and the headline on the listing is “up to 12 free weeks.” Twelve weeks of free rent, offered up front, to get a lease signed.
What This Means for Denver Landlords
If you own a rental property in the Denver area, whether it is a single family home, a single condo, or a small multifamily building, there are three takeaways.
1. Single family is insulated, but not as much as you might think. The listing data shows single family rents holding steady, and that is real. However, the new multifamily product coming online is very nice. These buildings offer large floor plans, underground parking, weight rooms, pools, and dog walking facilities, and they are now marketing directly to the people who would otherwise have rented a single family home. When a renter can get 12 free weeks on the front end of a lease at a property like that, some of them will take it. So yes, single family is a bit more protected, but you need to consider what is happening in the market overall and probably price in some type of move-in incentive on your single family home as well.
2. Your property must be fully updated and it must shine. Appliances need to be new or updated. Carpet needs to be fresh. Paint needs to be fresh. The home has to look sharp, because there is simply so much competition right now. Your property is competing against thousands of other listings, and it has to stand apart on the quality of the property itself.
3. Now is the time to be aggressive on price. Asking rents in Denver have been grinding lower month after month for the past year. We are recording this at the start of September, and we anticipate that trend will continue through the winter months and into 2027.
Here is why that matters. If you have a vacant property, it is tempting to try a higher price for a month and see what happens. What will happen is that it will not rent, and a month from now your price will not only be lower than what you tried, it will be lower than what you could have rented it for the prior month. You need to get ahead of the downward curve in advertised rental rates. That means being appropriately aggressive in your pricing from the start in order to attract a high quality applicant.
Offer the move-in incentive. Be aggressive on price. Make sure the property stands out and shines. Those three things together are what get a property rented in the Denver market right now.
Final Thoughts
If you are a current owner client of Grace Property Management, know that we take all of these factors into consideration when we help you price your rental property. We are marketing your home against this same competition, and pricing it correctly from day one is part of the process to attract quality applicants.
At Grace property management, we believe that when property management is performed as integrity and transparency, both tenants and landlords benefit. Property management is not just our business – as a relationship between us, our owner-clients, and our tenant-residents.
If these are important to you, we may be a good fit to provide you, your property, and your tenant-resident with our full-service property management services.
Feel free to reach out to us for assistance.
