Rents are continuing to fall around the metro Denver region.

The average apartment rent cost about $1,820 in the first quarter of 2025, down about 3% from the same time last year, according to a report from the Apartment Association of Metro Denver released Thursday.

Rents are continuing to fall after a large drop in the last quarter of 2024 due to a surge of new construction flooding the market, leading to the lowest rents in the region in three years with expectations it’ll keep falling.

“It’s a renter’s market now,” said Cary Brutieg, a researcher with Apartment Insights, in a call with reporters. “Probably will be for a few more years until things change again.”

The vacancy rate rose to 7%, according to the report — a rate where landlords start dropping rents.

Over the last 12 months, more than 20,000 units opened across the metro Denver region. About 14,500 of those new apartments have been rented.

“We filled up about three quarters of that huge new supply of apartments,” Brutieg said. “The quarter that didn’t get filled up added to the vacancy.”

For most of 2024, demand for apartments kept up with the construction boom keeping vacancies low and rents stabilized. But demand slowed at the end of last year, causing the largest price drop for the region since the Association began tracking the data.

This marks the second quarter in which rents have dropped.

It’s been 15 years since the vacancy hit 7% in the region, said Mark Williams, executive vice president of the Apartment Association of Metro Denver.

The competition for landlords to attract and keep tenants is heating up, which could mean more concessions and deals, Williams said, putting renters in the driver’s seat.

“The renter has more power to negotiate to some degree,” he said.

The pipeline of construction has slowed due to new regulations requiring a percentage of affordable housing in each building, according to the association. Still, there’s still thousands of units under construction which will help keep prices down.

The highest vacancy rates were in Denver at 7.7% and the lowest were in Douglas County at 5.8%. The oldest (pre-1970s) and the newest buildings (post 2020) also had the highest vacancy rates near 8.3%.

The highest rents were in Douglas County at nearly $2,000 a month, followed by Boulder at $1,930. Denver’s average rent was $1,840.