Over the last six months, the average rent for an apartment has decreased by $40 to an average of $961 per month, a decrease of 4 percent, according to RentJungle.com.

Oklahoma City, New York, Albuquerque, Portland, Louisville, Los Angeles, Dallas, Phoenix, Denver, and Nashville all posted declines of 7-9 percent, according to the apartment search and market research Web site. Wichita, Indianapolis, Miami all saw rent increases above 2 percent, the exceptions.

“Despite these decreases, we are seeing some encouraging signs in the rental market,” said Rentjungle.com CEO Jon Pastor, in the announcement. “Looking at just January this year, rent nationwide is up 1 percent over December, which is a reversal in the overall six-month trend.”

“Difficulties in the real estate market didn’t push as many people into apartments as the industry would have expected,” said Rentjungle.com founder Rick Ferris. “Increases in families renting instead of buying were offset by existing renters taking on roommates or moving back with parents.”

Rentjungle.com, recently relaunched, scours the Internet to amass apartment listings from a variety of sites.  Rentjungle.com uses spidering technology that can detect both when new rentals come on the market and when rents for a particular property change. Users can see searches on an easy, interactive map that links to satellite street views, then sort and bookmark individual listings. Rentjungle.com calculates report figures by analyzing more than one million apartment listings every month. From the site you can see a table of price changes by city.