Most multifamily market coverage leads with one number: advertised rent. It is easy to collect, easy to compare across markets, and easy to put in a headline. It is also the number that tells you the least about what a community is actually earning.
Start with the vocabulary
Asking rent is what the community advertises for a floor plan. It is a list price. It is not what residents pay.
Effective rent is what a resident pays after concessions, amortized over the lease term. A month free on a twelve-month lease is not a discount you can ignore — spread across the term, it changes the real revenue per unit.
Achieved rent is what was actually signed. It reflects the negotiation, the timing and how badly that particular unit needed to be filled.
Those three can move in different directions in the same month, which is exactly why a single headline number can be misleading.
The occupancy trap
The same problem applies to occupancy. Physical occupancy counts occupied units against total units. Economic occupancy counts collected revenue against potential revenue, and it will be lower whenever units sit vacant, concessions are deep, or delinquency is climbing.
Availability is a leasing concept, not an occupancy concept. It measures units available to rent right now, which is why availability can spike while occupancy looks fine — the vacant units exist, they just haven't been made ready or released yet.
How to read a survey
When you see a market figure, ask three questions. Which rent is this — asking, effective or achieved? What period does it cover? And what was the concession environment during that period? If the source can't answer all three, treat the number as a starting point rather than a conclusion.
None of this makes the data useless. It makes it worth reading carefully.
