Rent prices across the country are growing at breakneck speed, now more than double what they were at the same time in 2020.
According to the latest Single-Family Rent Index report from CoreLogic released on Tuesday, nationwide rent prices grew at 5.3 percent in April — more than double the 2.4 percent growth seen in April 2020 at the height of the pandemic.
Such growth has many factors but the biggest one is a cross-country lack of available inventory. Even when overvalued, properties placed on the market tend to get snapped up quickly both as sales and rentals.
CoreLogic
“Single-family rent growth showed a strong rebound in April 2021 with all price tiers back above their pre-pandemic rent growth rate,” Molly Boesel, principal economist at CoreLogic, said in a prepared statement. “While rent growth slowed last April at the start of the pandemic, the rate of rent growth this April was running above pre-pandemic levels even when compared with 2019 and shows no signs of diminishing.”
Detached rentals are, at 7.9 percent, seeing even higher growth while rentals attached to another property increased in price by only 2.2 percent annually. Lower-end homes worth less than 75 percent of an area’s median price grew rom 3.2 percent to 3.7 percent while homes worth more than 125 percent of an area’s median saw the highest jump from 2.2 percent in 2020 to 6.1 percent now.
CoreLogic
Every month, Phoenix sees the highest growth out of all major cities due to its bustling job market attracting new residents and young professionals. This month was no exception and the Arizona capital saw 12.2 percent growth while Tucson, Arizona, and Las Vegas came close behind at 10.6 and 9.3 percent, respectively.
Boston, which relies heavily on renting properties to students and is only now starting to recover from exodus spurred by the pandemic, had the highest drop in rent prices of any city in the US. While most places saw increased rents, Boston prices fell by 5.9 percent. Chicago, too, saw a decrease of 2.6 percent.