Marion County Rental Market Report: Q3 2026 vs. 2025

The first quarter of 2026 was a grind. More properties coming to market, days on market up 40 to 52 percent year over year, and median rents flat to slightly down in most months. If you read the Q1 2026 market report or the first half 2026 report, you saw a market working through elevated inventory with tenants taking longer to commit.

Q3 looks different. Transaction volume dropped 23.5 percent compared to Q3 2025. Leasing times fell to the fastest levels recorded in this data series, with August 2026 logging a median of 21 days on market. Median rents rose year over year in all three months — the first quarter where that has been true in 2026. What follows is the full data set.

How to Read This Data

These figures come from the Indianapolis MLS and cover residential properties that closed as leased in Marion County during July, August, and September. Not every rental listing appears in the MLS — private landlords, off-market rentals, and properties listed only on Zillow or Facebook Marketplace are not captured here. The data reflects a significant portion of the market but not the whole market.

Median figures are used throughout because they are less sensitive to outlier listings at the high or low end. Known data entry errors — including an erroneous 17,604 square foot listing that appears across multiple months — have been identified and excluded from trend observations. Average figures are included for reference but medians are the more reliable trend indicators in this dataset.

July 2026 vs. July 2025

	July 2025	July 2026	Change
Transactions	179	148	-31 (-17.3%)
Median Close Price	$1,550	$1,650	+$100 (+6.5%)
Avg Close Price	$1,568	$1,675	+$107 (+6.8%)
Median DOM	32 days	23 days	-9 days (-28.1%)
Avg DOM	42 days	40 days	-2 days
Avg $/Sqft	$1.27	$1.26	essentially flat

July 2026 closed with 31 fewer transactions than July 2025, a 17.3 percent decline in volume. Median leasing time dropped from 32 days to 23 days — a 28 percent improvement. Median close price rose $100 to $1,650. The per-square-foot average held essentially flat at $1.26, consistent with the pattern observed throughout the full dataset.

August 2026 vs. August 2025

	August 2025	August 2026	Change
Transactions	179	146	-33 (-18.4%)
Median Close Price	$1,500	$1,687	+$187 (+12.5%)
Avg Close Price	$1,486	$1,680	+$194 (+13.1%)
Median DOM	31 days	21 days	-10 days (-32.3%)
Avg DOM	45 days	36 days	-9 days
Avg $/Sqft	$1.28	$1.28	flat

August produced the strongest year-over-year numbers in this entire dataset. Median close price jumped $187 — 12.5 percent — from $1,500 to $1,687. Median DOM fell to 21 days, the lowest single-month figure recorded across all of 2025 and 2026. Average DOM dropped 9 days as well, which confirms this was not a statistical artifact from a handful of fast-leasing outliers. Both median and average moved in the same direction, by meaningful amounts.

September 2026 vs. September 2025

	September 2025	September 2026	Change
Transactions	183	120	-63 (-34.4%)
Median Close Price	$1,600	$1,635	+$35 (+2.2%)
Avg Close Price	$1,588	$1,620	+$32 (+2.0%)
Median DOM	29 days	28 days	-1 day
Avg DOM	46 days	41 days	-5 days
Avg $/Sqft	$1.20	$1.19	flat

September is where the data gets more complicated. Volume fell 34.4 percent — 63 fewer transactions than September 2025, the steepest single-month decline in this dataset. Median DOM held nearly flat at 28 days versus 29, and price gains moderated to $35 on the median. The July and August momentum did not carry forward in the same way. September’s numbers are still positive year over year, but the combination of sharply lower volume and narrowing price gains is a shift worth noting as Q4 data becomes available.

Q3 At a Glance

Month	2025 Vol.	2026 Vol.	2025 Median Close	2026 Median Close	2025 Median DOM	2026 Median DOM
July	179	148	$1,550	$1,650	32	23
August	179	146	$1,500	$1,687	31	21
September	183	120	$1,600	$1,635	29	28
Q3 Total	541	414	-127 transactions (-23.5% year over year)

What the Volume Drop Means

A 23.5 percent decline in MLS lease transactions is a significant number. A few things may be contributing. First, not all rental activity flows through the MLS. Private landlords and property management companies that list exclusively on Zillow or Facebook Marketplace do not appear in this data. If more activity shifted off-MLS in 2026, transaction volume would decline without the underlying rental market necessarily contracting.

Second, lower volume combined with faster leasing and higher prices is consistent with a supply-constrained market. Fewer units are coming available, but the units that do list are moving quickly and at higher rents. That is a different problem than a demand-constrained market, where units sit regardless of price adjustments.

Third, Q1 2026 showed the opposite pattern: higher transaction volume than Q1 2025, with slower leasing and flat rents. The market appears to have worked through a period of elevated supply early in the year and tightened considerably by summer. Whether that tightening holds into Q4 is what the next data set will show.

What the DOM Numbers Mean for Indianapolis Rental Owners

Median days on market of 21 to 28 days across Q3 is fast by any measure in this dataset. For context, Q1 2026 median DOM ranged from 35 to 52 days across the four months of January through April. The year started with the slowest leasing pace recorded here and finished Q3 at the fastest. That pattern — slow start, tightening summer — is the full arc of 2026 so far.

One consistent observation across the entire 2025-2026 dataset is that properties priced at or near market clear quickly while properties priced above it accumulate days. When the median sits at 21 to 23 days, the gap between a well-priced property and an overpriced one becomes more visible. An overpriced listing in a 21-day median market stands out more than it did in a 52-day median market, because the tenant pool can see that comparable properties have already leased.

This matters particularly for properties in Indianapolis urban core ZIP codes — 46201, 46218, 46219, 46205, 46208, 46222, and 46227 — where rental demand is concentrated and price sensitivity is real. If you want more detail on how days on market affects leasing outcomes and what property owners have done to address it, the full analysis on Indianapolis rental leasing times covers that in depth.

What the Rent Increases Mean

Q3 2026 is the first quarter in this dataset where median rents rose year over year in every month. Q1 showed flat to down rents in three of four months. The first half report showed May and June turning positive. Q3 confirms that trend held through the summer, with gains ranging from $35 in September to $187 in August.

Average close prices moved in the same direction as medians across all three months, which means the increases were not driven by a few high-end outliers skewing the average. The moves were real and broad-based.

Per-square-foot averages held flat throughout Q3 at $1.19 to $1.28 — the same narrow band observed across all of 2025 and 2026. The rent increases appear to reflect both a tighter supply environment and some shift in the composition of what is leasing, rather than uniform across-the-board rate increases. Either way, the direction changed in Q3.

A Note on Data and On-the-Ground Conditions

MLS data is a lagging indicator. A lease that closed in September was likely listed in August or earlier. The 34 percent volume decline in September, combined with active inventory in Indianapolis running higher than typical at this point in the year — currently 5 active rental listings compared to the usual 3 this time of year — suggests Q4 may not carry the same momentum that July and August showed. The data reflects what closed, not what is sitting active on the market today.

As noted in the first half 2026 report, the MLS captures a meaningful portion of the rental market but not all of it. The data here should be read as directionally reliable rather than as a precise count of every lease transacted in Marion County. With that caveat in place, the Q3 trend lines — lower volume, faster leasing, higher rents — are consistent and clear enough to be useful for planning and pricing decisions.

All market reports in this series, covering Marion County lease data back through 2025, are published at the Indiana rental market reports hub.

Q3 2026 Key Findings

• Q3 transaction volume down 23.5 percent year over year (414 vs. 541 closed leases)
• September volume down 34.4 percent — the steepest single-month decline in the 2025-2026 dataset
• Median DOM improved year over year in all three months: 23, 21, and 28 days vs. 32, 31, and 29 in 2025
• August 2026 median DOM of 21 days is the fastest single month recorded across the full dataset
• Median close prices up year over year in all three months: +$100, +$187, and +$35
• First quarter in 2026 where every month showed a year-over-year rent increase
• Per-square-foot averages held flat at $1.19 to $1.28 across all three months

If you own or manage rental property in Indianapolis and want to know how your specific assets compare against this data, a property-level analysis is the place to start.