Q4 2025 Leasing Trends & Benchmarks

Lead volume dropped 42% from summer highs. Days on market crossed 31 days. But conversion rates ticked upward as leasing teams got more efficient with fewer leads.

In our Q4 2025 Leasing Data & Trends Report we analyzed thousands of properties across the funnel, from marketing through application submission. Here's what moved the needle when leads were scarce.

Marketing: Geographic shifts and lead source diversification

The post-COVID migration south is adjusting back. Wisconsin leads in average lead volume per property, with New England and Midwest states (Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky) seeing stronger winter demand than Florida, Texas, and Arizona.

Zillow still drives over 50% of leads but has dropped from the mid-60s to the high 50s range. That diversification is healthy, it means other channels are gaining ground.

But here’s the big breakout story: organic website leads. They convert at much higher rates to both completed showings (2.0x) and applications (1.6x). In Q4, roughly 20% of all submitted applications on RentEngine originated from organic website leads, which includes cross-selling (sending a link to your website to an existing lead, for another property).

Lead Response: The after-hours gap

53% of leads arrive outside business hours. The median response time during business hours is 85 minutes. After hours, it balloons to 1,100 minutes, nearly 19 hours.

Prospects search for rentals while laying in bed scrolling or after dinner, not between 9 to 5. The questions they ask before scheduling a showing are predictable: availability and timing (by far the most common), followed by property features, pet policies, and parking.

Showings: Self-guided tours lease 3 days faster

Self-guided showings convert 49% of leads to scheduled showings compared to 37% for accompanied showings. They complete at nearly double the rate (33% vs 18% of all leads) and lease in 31.6 days instead of 34.6.

The driver is availability. Self-guided showings let prospects pick times that work for them. Accompanied showings require alignment between prospect and agent availability, which limits conversion.

75% of canceled showings never get rescheduled. If a prospect no-shows, there's less than a 10% chance they'll ever complete a showing for that property. The same applies when the agent cancels, if you cancel on a prospect, there's about a 75% chance that showing never happens.

Showing Feedback: Temperature kills conversions

50% of all showing feedback mentions HVAC, heat, or temperature. This isn't just winter seasonality, prospects felt uncomfortable enough to leave feedback about it, which made them question other aspects of the property.

Cleanliness and appliances make up the next 25% of feedback. These are the big three items that separate positive from negative showing experiences.

Application requested rate is the signal. If fewer than 80% of prospects who complete a showing request an application, dig into the feedback. That gap indicates property-specific issues (renovation needs, location concerns, or maintenance problems) that you can surface in owner conversations with data.

Follow-ups: Post-showing nurture matters

Getting a prospect from completed showing to submitted application takes 3 automatic follow-ups and 2 manual or AI responses. Prospects send around 3 messages and make 1 phone call before submitting.

This is a different part of the sales cycle than pre-showing lead response. Before the showing, questions focus on property details and scheduling logistics. After the showing, questions shift to rental requirements and application mechanics.

The best-performing teams stay responsive during this window. For qualified prospects, it takes about 2 days to fully submit an application after completing a showing—but only if they get the answers they need.

What works in winter leasing

When lead volume drops, operations matter more. The properties that leased fastest in Q4 did three things well:

Responded to after-hours leads immediately. Either through AI or extended team coverage, they didn't make prospects wait 19 hours for basic questions about availability and property features.

Maximized showing availability. Self-guided showings or agents with same-day/next-day availability converted more leads and had fewer cancellations and no-shows.

Used feedback to fix property issues. When showing-to-application conversion dropped below 80%, they investigated feedback and addressed temperature, cleanliness, or appliance concerns before more showings happened.