The national median rent rose by just 0.4% in March from February to $1,363, according to Apartment List. Last year, the monthly increase was 0.6%. March rents were down 1.7% on an annual basis, the largest drop since Apartment List began tracking in 2017 and larger than the record set in the early months of the pandemic. The national median rent is now down 5.5% from its peak in 2022.
“The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed U.S. employers cutting jobs, and the war in Iran is pushing prices higher just as inflation was getting back under control,” wrote Chris Salviati, chief economist at Apartment List. “These factors have put many households in a state of heightened financial uncertainty, which consequently puts a damper on housing demand.”
Last year at this time it looked like annual rent growth was going to flip into the positive for the first time since mid-2023, but that rebound stalled as the labor market weakened. Rents are falling because vacancies are also unusually high. The national rate in March was 7.3%, unchanged from February, but still the highest since 2017. There was a huge surge in the supply of new apartment units over the last three years. It peaked in 2024 but is still elevated and is now colliding with newly sluggish demand. In 2024, more than 600,000 new multifamily units hit the market, according to government reports, the most new supply in a single year since 1986.
How_Do_You_Crash on
Im always slightly suspicious of this way of viewing the numbers. While it “puts pressure” on households it doesn’t decrease demand. Except maybe for luxury buildings. Which are stuck in their own loan problems where they can’t cut rent but can stack incentives like mad.
My gut reaction is that this has to do more with the last of the building boom in apartments coming online right as we have net inflow migration crashing.
dThink_Ahea on
Oh no! The cataclysmic economy is finally affecting the economy!
Prices on vital expenditures like housing are growing *less fast* than they usually do because the average person is getting fucked in every hole simultaneously by corporate and governmental greed, carelessness and mismanagement! How dare they spend less of the money that they’ve been telling us they don’t have! Don’t they know it affects **THE LINE**?
I love how the economy is constantly collapsing but it’s only ever a problem when the consequences reach the people who are collapsing it.
3 Comments
The national median rent rose by just 0.4% in March from February to $1,363, according to Apartment List. Last year, the monthly increase was 0.6%. March rents were down 1.7% on an annual basis, the largest drop since Apartment List began tracking in 2017 and larger than the record set in the early months of the pandemic. The national median rent is now down 5.5% from its peak in 2022.
“The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed U.S. employers cutting jobs, and the war in Iran is pushing prices higher just as inflation was getting back under control,” wrote Chris Salviati, chief economist at Apartment List. “These factors have put many households in a state of heightened financial uncertainty, which consequently puts a damper on housing demand.”
Last year at this time it looked like annual rent growth was going to flip into the positive for the first time since mid-2023, but that rebound stalled as the labor market weakened. Rents are falling because vacancies are also unusually high. The national rate in March was 7.3%, unchanged from February, but still the highest since 2017. There was a huge surge in the supply of new apartment units over the last three years. It peaked in 2024 but is still elevated and is now colliding with newly sluggish demand. In 2024, more than 600,000 new multifamily units hit the market, according to government reports, the most new supply in a single year since 1986.
Im always slightly suspicious of this way of viewing the numbers. While it “puts pressure” on households it doesn’t decrease demand. Except maybe for luxury buildings. Which are stuck in their own loan problems where they can’t cut rent but can stack incentives like mad.
My gut reaction is that this has to do more with the last of the building boom in apartments coming online right as we have net inflow migration crashing.
Oh no! The cataclysmic economy is finally affecting the economy!
Prices on vital expenditures like housing are growing *less fast* than they usually do because the average person is getting fucked in every hole simultaneously by corporate and governmental greed, carelessness and mismanagement! How dare they spend less of the money that they’ve been telling us they don’t have! Don’t they know it affects **THE LINE**?
I love how the economy is constantly collapsing but it’s only ever a problem when the consequences reach the people who are collapsing it.