Orlando Rental Market: What Owners Need to Know

Are Orlando rents up or down? Both, honestly

Depending on the source, Orlando rents grew 0.6% over the past year (Zillow) or fell 2.1% (Apartment List, Colliers). Neither is wrong. They measure different things. Zillow's index tracks the whole rental stock, houses included. Apartment List tracks median listing changes. Colliers and RealPage focus on professionally managed apartment buildings, where the construction boom hit pricing hardest.

Put together, the honest read for 2026: rents are flat to slightly soft, and the pressure is easing. RealPage measured +1.0% apartment rent growth in Q2 as retention improved. Occupancy climbed from 94.3% to 94.8%. CoStar describes Orlando as approaching balance as demand catches up with supply.

For a single-family or small multifamily owner, the practical takeaway is simple. Price from live comparables, not from what the neighbor got in 2022, and not from apartment-tower headlines either. Houses and small rentals sit in the steadier part of this market.

Median rent by size, City of Orlando

Apartment List, August 2026. These are city figures. The wider metro median is $1,519, about 0.4% below the city number. We label the geography because blending city and metro numbers is how rent statistics get quietly wrong.

Wondering about your specific home? Medians describe the market, not your property. A free rental analysis prices yours from live comparables.

Supply is slowing. Demand is not.

The soft rents of the past two years came from a construction boom. That boom is winding down. About 9,100 new apartments are scheduled to deliver in 2026, well below 2025 levels, and roughly 40% of them are concentrated around International Drive and Northwest Orlando (Northmarq). Behind that, permits for future buildings fell 20.9% year over year through May (RealPage). Fewer permits today means fewer new competitors in 2027 and 2028.

Demand keeps arriving. The metro added 37,690 residents in the year ending July 2025, the 10th largest gain of any U.S. metro (Census). Employers added 20,600 jobs in the year ending June 2026 (BLS, which notes the 1.4% change is within its statistical margin). People moving in plus construction slowing down is the setup for firmer rents ahead, which is exactly what the quarterly numbers have started to show.