Cleveland Multifamily Report – April 2026
Most metrics point to a healthy year.
Cleveland’s multifamily sector started 2026 with mostly encouraging fundamentals. Average advertised asking rents improved slightly, up 0.2 percent, on a trailing three-month basis through February, to $1,246. Meanwhile, the U.S. average slid 0.1 percent, to $1,740. Year-over-year, rents rose 2.8 percent. The metro’s occupancy rate for stabilized assets clocked in at 94.5 percent in February, above the 94.3 percent U.S. average.
Cleveland’s unemployment rate stood at 3.4 percent in December, while Akron’s was 4.3 percent, according to preliminary Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Both were below the 4.4 percent national average. In 2025, Cleveland gained only 800 net jobs, weighed down by losses in the leisure and hospitality, and the trade, transportation and utilities sectors. The metro’s job growth rate was 0.5 percent in 2025, below the 0.6 percent U.S. figure. Amid these muted gains, The Sherwin-Williams Co. has now fully relocated to its new 1 million-square-foot headquarters, bringing more than 3,100 employees to downtown Cleveland.
Developers across the metro had more than 3,300 units under construction as of February. The pipeline included some 20,100 units moving through the planning and permitting stages. This follows last year’s total of 1,833 units. Multifamily transactions totaled $34.1 million year-to-date through February. Sales vol
ume was ahead of the nearly $27 million that traded during the same period in 2025.
