A report from the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina. "It’s commercial real estate forecast season in Charlotte. Experts and real estate professionals seem agreed that while Charlotte’s white-hot pace of growth in everything from rent to new construction might slow down a bit this year, there aren’t any big, flashing signs warning 'Crash ahead!' Put another way, most professionals don’t think we’re sitting on top of another pre-recession bubble here. Still, growth is expected to slow a bit from 2015 and 2016, with words such as 'selective,' 'cautious' and 'take a pause' popping up frequently in real estate forecasts."

"With nearly 24,000 apartment units in development this year throughout the Charlotte region, one of the most frequent questions I get is 'When are we going to build too many apartments? 'Yes, you all are building a lot, but you’re also absorbing a lot,' said Kevin Thorpe, global chief economist for Cushman & Wakefield. But that doesn’t mean average rents are going to keep shooting up at the current burning pace of 35 percent over the past five years. With the big increase in supply, rents are likely to stop growing as fast, and perhaps even fall a bit. 'I would be anticipating that your apartment sector is going to see a pretty significant softening of rents in the next few years,' said Thorpe."

The Sun Sentinel in Florida. "South Florida rents have strongly favored landlords in recent years, but the rental market appears to have peaked, said Marshall Sklar, co-founder of Florida's Best Realty Services in Boca Raton. While rent increases continue, some tenants are starting to balk at the higher prices, forcing landlords to offer reduced rent hikes and concessions such as free rent, Sklar said. 'The market is still strong, but it's not what it was a year ago,' he said."

The Anchorage Daily News in Alaska. "Anchorage landlords appear to be seeing more effects of the slowing Alaska economy. Debenham Properties right now is offering prospective new tenants a 5 percent rent discount — more than the typical seasonal deal, Shaun Debenham said. The company is also offering a move-in special that includes $300 off the first month's rent, something it hasn't done in the past. 'I think we have seen a lot of higher-end jobs leave Alaska. Like when oil companies are laying off, it affects a lot of other higher-paying jobs down the line,' Debenham said."

From The Gazette in Colorado. "If Colorado Springs' real estate market and economy were social media topics, they'd be trending - and in the right direction. Single-family housing had a record year for sales in 2016, while apartments filled up and rents soared. The local apartment vacancy rate plunged to 4 percent in 2016 after having been as high as 10 percent in 2008, said Doug Carter, a local commercial broker and part of national real estate firm Sperry Van Ness."

"But the increases followed years in which rents were stagnant, Carter said. At the same time, Springs-area rents over the last 12 years have increased only about half as much as those in Denver, he said. Denver's apartment market is cooling, in part, because it's being overbuilt; 25,000 units are under construction and another 27,000 are planned, Carter said."

The Las Cruces Sun-News in New Mexico. "New Mexico State University on Friday walked away from a plan to privatize campus housing. NMSU Chancellor Garrey Carruthers said the university has too much housing stock. 'But you have to keep in mind how we got here,' he told the Sun-News. 'Years ago, there were none of these apartments around here. This campus was out here by itself, so the university took it upon itself to build all of this housing. Now we’ve got private apartments all over the place, and we just don’t need it.'"

From Real Estate Weekly on New York. "Rents in Manhattan and Brooklyn continued to trend downward during December, according to the monthly rental market report from Citi Habitats. The last time this much inventory was available on the market was in April of 2009. 'The most recent data for December shows there is considerable local demand for rental housing. However, there is still a disconnect between the rents that landlords want to achieve and the pricing tenants are willing to pay, which is why concessions remain a significant force in the marketplace,' said Gary Malin, President of Citi Habitats."

The Dallas Morning News in Texas. "Dallas-Fort Worth apartment rents weren't rising as fast in December. The rate of rent increases in the Fort Worth area also declined. 'D-FW is finally feeling some of the effects of all the new supply hitting the market,' Axiometrics' Jay Denton said in the report. 'While demand has remained relatively steady as job growth has not declined significantly, supply has finally caught up with demand.'"

"Average quoted Dallas-area apartment rents were actually down in December from November — but not by much. About 50,000 apartments are under construction in North Texas, more than any other U.S. metro area."

The Houston Chronicle in Texas. "Average apartment rents in the Houston area dropped to the lowest level in two years, a new report showed. The Montrose/River Oaks submarket, where many new units have been built in recent years, saw an annual drop of 8.4 percent in December. Houston-area apartment investors and property owners need jobs to be created so demand for their units will increase," Jay Denton, Axiometrics senior vice president of analytics said in an announcement. 'Even though construction of new properties is subsiding, a lot of supply is still hitting the market. With occupancy below 92 percent, many units are vacant.'"

Inforum on North Dakota. "Apartment vacancies are on the rise in Fargo-Moorhead. The latest apartment vacancy and construction report, compiled by Appraisal Services Inc. and released Jan. 12, took a snapshot of the community market as of Dec. 1. These reports are for the Fargo-Moorhead metropolitan area, including West Fargo and Dilworth. The latest survey reflects 30,155 units of the estimated 39,050 apartment units now in the metro area. While 236 new units entered the market in the last quarter, vacancies went up by 443, 'indicating that the market may now be experiencing a shortage of demand to compound the current oversupply of units,' according to the report."

"The overall vacancy rate for the metro was 9.21 percent, up considerably from 6.4 percent in December 2015 and 2.9 percent in December 2013. The rate increased in all four communities in the market, with West Fargo having the highest vacancy of 12.55 percent, followed by Dilworth at 12.2 percent, Fargo at 8.85 percent and Moorhead at 7.98 percent. More than 6,000 new apartment units have been built since vacancies hit a recent low of 2.5 percent for the metro, according to the report."

"But the latest figures are likely a conservative estimate of the reality because the survey only measures physical vacancy, or units that are not occupied, and can't account for the 'economic vacancy' that's likely more than 10 percent now because of units currently affected by rental incentives or rent delinquencies."