Q4 2025 MULTIFAMILY MARKET UPDATE
- Colliers | Columbus
- 42 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Written by: Jake Lord
Jake specializes in research capabilities, providing support for the Colliers Columbus Office, Industrial, and Retail groups. He is responsible for executing data reports, maintaining a commercial property database, reporting quarterly trends, performing data analysis, and utilizing statistical information to predict future behavior in the market. Keep reading for his insights on the Columbus multifamily market in Q4 2025.
Key Takeaways
YoY rent growth remains positive but is decelerating due to seasonality and elevated YTD deliveries. Workforce housing continues to outperform discretionary product.
Record deliveries are expected throughout 2026.
20%+ expected decline in new starts in 2026.
Expect urban rent growth to reignite and suburban to remain moderate.
Favorable credit availability will help weather record supply deliveries.
Regional Summary
The Columbus multifamily market remains of heightened interest for capital deployment and expansion but through the fourth quarter of 2025 has endured supply and seasonal challenges. Year-over-year rent growth in the market declined to mere .44% through the fourth quarter from 1.37% at the end of the third quarter. Year-over-year rent growth declines from Q3 to Q4 is not uncommon and the occurrence marks the seventh time in the past ten years, with only peak COVID years defying the trend.
Despite declining rent growth, delayed data reporting due to the federal government shutdown surprised Columbus with a drastic drop in its unemployment rate to 3.6% and Ohio ranked as a top 10 state for year-over-year GDP growth with a reading of 5.1%. Rent declines are highly concentrated in new Class A deliveries and around the urban core, meanwhile workforce housing nearly posted positive gains across all submarkets. On a going forward basis, Columbus' highest rent growth submarkets will likely be dictated by the supply dynamics of each submarket and is likely to pinball quarter over quarter as each submarket absorbs new supply. 2025 was a record year of deliveries for the Central Ohio region and it's expected that deliveries across the market in 2026 will increase an estimated 6.5% to around 8,500 units.
2025 was a record year for new construction starts which derived from a backlog of delayed projects from developers struggling to pencil new deals after the historic interest rate run but new starts are expected to taper through 2026 as utility ready land availability continues to plummet. Columbus is expected to experience a 22.1%Â decline in new market-rate starts through 2026. New construction is highly concentrated in the suburbs and has pushed out to peripheral secondary Columbus submarkets. The urban, and urban adjacent, submarkets are expected to enter an extremely bear supply pipeline which will establish a foundation to reignite rent growth in the urban core and keep suburban rent growth moderate. As the market springs forward, it's expected that the concession utilization will wane come the cyclical Columbus Spring leasing season.
Under Construction
The Columbus MSA remains a very active market-rate multifamily development market that is widely dominated by private capital and local developers. With wide speculation for the destiny of short-term interest rates in 2026, the market continues to push forward projects to meet Columbus' anticipated growth in demand driven by strong job growth. After diligent updates to the construction pipeline, our Colliers Capital Markets team is expecting to experience an uptick in deliveries for 2026 from an estimated 7,978 units in 2025 to 8,499 units for market-rate projects larger than 50+ units.
Currently under construction there is an estimated 9,453 units in the pipeline, an estimated 4.49% of current market-rate inventory of properties 50+ units in size. An estimated 13,442 units are in lease up and have an average vacancy of 51%. There has been a noticeable usage of concessions through the fourth quarter of 2025 but it's unclear whether it's supply-driven or simply the seasonal nature of the Columbus market.
Developer appetite remains robust across the northern arc of the MSA with 52.77% units across the supply spectrum concentrated in the suburban submarkets north of I-70 and outside of I-270. The Hilliard submarket has 27.89% of total units under construction in the submarket, the highest concentration comparatively. Activity in the Hilliard submarket is largely due to the rapidly redeveloping Trabue Road corridor and at Quarry Trails. The North Columbus submarkets have the largest exposure of properties in lease-up with a 21.39% concentration of total units in lease-up. Columbus' large supply influxes have caused year-over-year rent growth through Q4 '25 to decline to a tepid .44% and will likely remain mediated until new supply is absorbed.
Check out the full Q4 2025 Multifamily Trends report here!