Think your rent is just too high? Here’s a shocking fact: Rents have actually been going down every month for nearly a year.
According to a new report from Realtor.com®, rents in the United States have declined year-over-year for the past 11 consecutive months. The median asking rent in the 50 largest metros for the month of June was $1,743, which is $7 less than what renters paid in June 2023.
Still, even though rents are becoming more affordable, it’s not by much. The median rent in the U.S. is just $11 (or 0.6%) lower than its peak in August 2022. However, rent prices have fallen more sharply in some markets, so apartment hunters could feel a palpable relief in their wallets depending on where they’re looking for an apartment.
Where rents drop the most each year
Rents fell the most in Austin, Texas, where renters paid 9.5% less per month than a year ago, spending an average of $1,481 per month.
After Austin, it’s San Antonio, Texas, where prices fell 8.2% in June from a year earlier, to a median of $1,234 per month. Nashville, Tennessee, comes in third, with rents plummeting 8.1% annually, to a median of $1,525 per month.
“The markets that saw the biggest year-over-year declines are all in the South,” Realtor.com economist Jiayi Xu notes in his analysis. “This trend is not surprising given the substantial increase in new rental supply in these regions.”
But rental prices have skyrocketed since COVID-19
Although rental prices are down from a year ago, they are still on the rise since the COVID-19 pandemic.
In June, renters paid an average of $305 more per month in rent than they did in 2019. That’s a whopping 21.2% increase, but it’s roughly comparable to what’s happened in overall consumer prices, which have climbed 22.6% over the past five years.
On average, two-bedroom units increased by $363 (23.0%), one-bedroom units increased by $264 (19.5%) and studio units increased by $219 (17.6%) since June 2019.
While that price increase is astronomical, Xu says it still pales in comparison to the 52.6% increase in the median price per square foot of homes for sale over the past five years ending in June 2024.
The only place where rents have fallen since pre-pandemic times
San Francisco, California is the only metro area in the top 50 where current rental prices are lower than five years ago.
Tenants are paying an average of $153 less per month than in June 2019, a savings of 5.2%.
According to Xu, San Francisco saw a significant drop in rents during this period as people moved out of expensive tech hubs during the pandemic.
Despite this, rents there still average $2,784 per month.
News Source : nypost.com
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