It's hard to believe, but the fourth quarter is here and in full swing.

For now, multifamily performance data continues to behave like it did during the mid-summer, when the pandemic induced a variety of ups and downs. Typically, seasonality means things slow down a bit in the fall, and we see very little difference in metrics week over week. 

The leading indicator data for the week ending on Oct. 4 is broadly down WoW. We're also seeing many Year-over-Year declines.

Here are some of the specific takeaways for the week ending on Oct. 4:

• Nationally, traffic was down 2.3% WoW and 6.3% YoY. Leases were down 1.9% from the preceding week but were up 11.4% when compared to the same time last year. Eighteen of the 21 metropolitan statistical areas tracked by Radix showed YoY increases in leases per property. The biggest increases from one year ago were found in San Jose, Calif. (48.4%), Charlotte, N.C. (45%), San Antonio (45%) and Chicago (43%). The only ones to show declines from one year ago were Riverside, Calif. (12.5%), Las Vegas (5.7%) and Washington, D.C. (2.7%). This is also a reflection of price – the MSAs with higher leasing velocity are also seeing some of the largest Net Effective Rent (NER) declines, so the lower price point is certainly pushing up higher leasing.
• The national occupancy rate stood at 93.88%. That was a decrease of 0.1% from the preceding week and 0.6% YoY. 
• The national leased percentage was 94.96%, which represented a drop of 0.1% from the week before and 0.3% from one year ago. 
• At $1,636, the national net effective declined 0.5% from the week before. The YoY decrease was 8.5%.