Orlando's rent story is bifurcating by unit type: the spread between asking and in-place rents is widening on studios and one-beds while compressing hard on three- and four-bedrooms — and tradeouts confirm none of it is landing yet.

Market-wide, the asking-vs-in-place gap actually widened slightly over the past year (7.2% → 7.7%) 1, which reads as pricing power until you check tradeouts: new-lease trade-outs are running essentially flat to negative on every bedroom count except the thin-sample 4BR+ segment 2. That's the tell — asking rents are aspirational, not confirmed.

The split by unit type is the real finding:

Small units: landlords are stretching, not confirming. Studio spread nearly quadrupled (1.4% → 5.7%) and 1BR widened (6.2% → 7.5%) 3, but both segments are signing new leases below the prior tenant's rent (-0.4% and -0.7% tradeouts) 4. That combination — rising asking premium, negative tradeout — is the classic sign of sticker-shock pricing that isn't clearing the market. Occupancy market-wide has fallen from 96.0% to 92.3% over the same 12 months 5, consistent with renters resisting the ask.

Large units are the opposite story — and the more interesting one. The 3BR spread compressed from 12.7% to 8.0% and 4BR+ from 22.0% to 16.5% 6 — operators are pulling asking rents down toward what large units actually lease for, the healthier form of price discovery. 3BR tradeouts are still slightly negative (-0.8%, on a solid 620-lease sample), so even the correction hasn't fully caught up, but the direction is right-sizing rather than stretching.

2BR — the largest, most liquid unit type (1,738 leases) — is the bellwether and it's flat-to-softening: spread roughly steady around 6.7-7.0% but tradeout at -0.8%, meaning new leases are still signing below expiring rents even as asking barely moves. That's the segment to watch for market direction, not the studio/4BR extremes.

I'd act on this now: push asking rents on 3BR/4BR listings is over — that gap has been closing for two straight quarters and further asking increases there will just extend days-on-market. On studios and 1BRs, the growing spread is not supportable at current occupancy; underwriting rent growth off asking rates in the small-unit segment will overstate what's actually collectible. The one number that would flip this read: two consecutive months of positive tradeouts on 1BR/2BR — that would confirm the asking premium is finally clearing rather than just sitting on the market.