Zumper, a national digital marketplace for renters, has published its latest National Rent Report, and rents in Atlanta remain among the top 25 most expensive in the country. One-bedroom and two-bedroom units in the city proper, not to be confused with metro Atlanta, are above the national average despite rents falling over the past 90 days.
Atlanta is 25th on a list that includes the usual suspects, New York City (1st), San Francisco (2nd), Boston (3rd), and Miami (6th).
“National rent prices have now been flat or falling for three straight months, which signals a real shift in the market,” said Zumper’s Crystal Chen, one of the two authors of the report along with Quentin Proctor. “A mix of cooling renter demand, last year’s record wave of new supply, and softer conditions in the job market has taken some heat out of rents.”
Zumper’s National Rent Index revealed that national rent prices were either flat or declining for the third consecutive month. In September, one-bedroom rent units held steady at $1,517 per month, while rents for two-bedroom units dipped 0.2% to $1,894. The good news: Year-over-year, both unit types are down 1%.
But not in Atlanta—at least not yet. According to Zumper data, one-bedroom units in Atlanta average $1650 per month, while two-bedroom units average $2,010, more than $100 above the national average.
“We’ll likely see prices temper a bit further through the winter if typical seasonality patterns hold true, but with fewer new units being built this year, rent prices will likely increase again as we move into the spring months of 2026,” Chen said.
Those numbers are still better than those in San Francisco, for example, where a one-bedroom unit averages $3,500 and a two-bedroom unit is breaking the $5,000 mark.
Rents in the mountain region are down. For example, one-bedroom units in Salt Lake City are down 11% year-over-year. Desert cities such as Las Vegas (-3.3%) and Phoenix (-3.8%) have also seen rent prices fall.