What a move-in special actually is
A concession: free rent, usually one to three months, given to get a unit leased. It is not a discount on the listed rent and it is not a permanent price. It is an incentive with an expiry date, and understanding that distinction is worth real money.
Right now roughly half of the communities we work with in San Antonio are running one. That is unusually high, and it reflects a market at close to 10% vacancy with Class A rents down about 3.2% year over year. It is also, as our homepage sets out, probably temporary, construction starts dropped roughly 80% in 2024 and the pipeline thins through late 2026 into 2027.
The three things to know before you chase one
One: it changes your cost more than the sticker does. A $1,500 unit with two months free costs $1,250 a month averaged across a twelve-month lease. A $1,400 unit with no special costs $1,400. The higher advertised rent is $1,800 cheaper over the term. The arithmetic is on net effective rent explained.
Two: it applies to year one only. At renewal you negotiate from $1,500, not $1,250. Renters who budget around the discounted figure get a renewal offer that reads like a 20% increase when it is mostly the concession disappearing.
Three: it does not touch the fee stack. Valet trash, pest, RUBS water and sewer, billing admin and tech or amenity packages add 7-15% over base rent and are not discounted by a concession. Your real comparison number is net effective rent plus the mandatory stack.
Why we do not publish a live property list here
Because it would be wrong within weeks. Concessions change monthly, sometimes faster at a property in lease-up. A published list with a name and a number attached ages badly, and a stale special is worse than no special. It sends you to an office expecting something that ended. We track them with dates and hand over the current set.
Where the unadvertised ones come from
The concessions that never reach a listing site are usually unit-specific rather than community-wide. A ground-floor unit that has sat for six weeks. An odd floor plan. Something facing the garage. A property will discount a specific problem unit well before it advertises a community-wide special, because a community-wide special resets expectations for everyone.
Those only surface through the leasing office. Not through a syndication feed, not through a listing platform, and not by filtering an aggregator by “specials”.
Talking to Bexar County leasing offices weekly is the entire mechanism. There is nothing clever about it. It is just phone calls, written down with a date.
What to ask for
When you or we call an office, the useful questions are:
- What concession is running on this specific unit, and when does it expire?
- Is anything running on other floor plans that is not advertised?
- Is the admin fee waivable as part of the deal?
- What terms is the concession available on. Is a 7-month or 17-month eligible?
- How is it applied: whole months waived, or spread across every month?
That last one matters for cash flow. The total is the same either way, but “months one and two free” and “$125 off every month” produce very different move-in budgets.
Timing
December through February carries the deepest concessions market-wide. May through August is peak PCS and school-cycle demand and the thinnest. That pattern is set out on best time of year to lease.
But the pattern is market-wide, not property-level. A newly delivered building with 180 empty units runs its most aggressive concession whenever it needs to. Which is why the confirmation date, not the calendar, is the thing to act on.
Getting the current list
We keep concessions in the San Antonio Screening & Cost Index with an expiry and a confirmed date on each, and we re-verify around your search rather than handing you something from last month. It is free, and there is no gimmick rebate attached. The community pays the referral fee.
Tell us your submarket and rent band and we will send what is actually running this week.
