Photo by Michael T. Ruhl

The Washington area has been getting a lot of flack lately for its relative economic strength compared to the rest of the United States over the past few recession-addled years. And much of the region’s stability has been demonstrated by the ever-growing number of apartment buildings on the rise in the D.C. and suburban skylines.

But despite this town’s transient nature and seemingly endless supply of new residents, things are starting to slow down. The U.S. Census Bureau reported last week that even though D.C.’s population is still growing, it is doing so at a slower pace than in previous years. Meanwhile, the suburbs are also still expanding, but with losses in domestic migration.

And now some analysts are concerned that Washington will be left with more apartments than it knows what to do with, especially at a time when the federal government—which accounts for more about 20 percent of the area’s economic output. The Wall Street Journal reports that the 26,000 new apartments developers expect to deliver over the next two years are likely to far outstrip demand:

Now, an oversupply of new apartments is taking hold. The growth in rental prices is slowing, developers are canceling or scaling back projects, and more landlords are concentrating on lower-priced rental units to compete with the glut of high-priced apartments expected to hit the market over the next three years.

“Washington is a temptress. It’s a trap. The historic stability of the area induces both financiers and developers to move forward with projects that they might hesitate to build in almost any other market,” said Anirban Basu, chief executive of economic consultancy Sage Policy Group Inc. “At some point there simply are not enough warm bodies to fill all the units that they’re building.”

Meanwhile, if rents on existing buildings aren’t dropping, they’re at least slowing the rate at which they are increasing. The average rent in D.C. increased 1.9 percent in 2012, the Journal reports. That’s well down from 7.8 percent in 2010, and average rents could actually decrease this year.