Inland Empire, CA Multifamily Market Report Q3 2026

Absorption Rebounds to 337 Units as New Supply Falls 71%

Demand

Inland Empire absorbed 337 units in Q3 2026, against 141 in the same quarter last year. Vacancy is 4.2%, 26 bps tighter than Q3 2025. San Bernadino is the tightest submarket at 3.1% vacancy; Victorville leads rent growth at +5.1%. Trailing-12-month absorption of 2,087 units is down from 6,453 a year earlier.

Supply

Inland Empire recorded 327 units of completions in Q3 and 1,614 over the trailing twelve months (-71% versus the prior TTM period). Units under construction equal 1.2% of inventory, concentrated in Hemet/Perris/Temecula at 3.9% of its stock. Annual completions peaked at 4,409 units in 2006. The 2,550-unit pipeline equals about five quarters of absorption at the trailing pace.

Investment Market

Inland Empire recorded $1.5B in sales over the trailing twelve months, +46% against the prior TTM period; Q3 accounted for $1.08B. The high-water mark in this series is $4.1B in 2021. Q3 volume is 5.0 times the prior four-quarter average and likely reflects entity-level activity from the AvalonBay and Equity Residential merger. Read volume as directional. CoStar records $660M for Q3; on that count trailing volume would be $1.1B.

Inland Empire cap rates average 5.54%, up for 18 straight quarters. Pricing sits at $247k per unit, higher for 2 consecutive years.