As the peak rental season got into full swing, the national average rent reached $1,465 in June – that’s an extra $37 added to the average rent since the beginning of the year and $45 more compared to June 2018, according to a new report from Rent Café.
Compared to last June, renters pay $45 more on average, according to the latest rent survey from Yardi Matrix.
“With renting remaining the preferred housing option, the first half of 2019 saw accelerated rates in apartment-leasing activity, as well as an effective rise in occupancy,” said Doug Ressler, Director of Business Intelligence at Yardi Matrix, in the report.
Some of the key points from the national average rent report
- The U.S. average rent increased by 3.2% ($45) year over year reaching $1,465 in June 2019, up by 0.8% ($12) month over month, according to Yardi Matrix data.
- Throughout the first half of 2019, the national average rent has increased by 2.6% ($37).
- Wichita, Kan., is the country’s most affordable city to rent in, at $656 per month, while the average monthly rent in Manhattan, NYC is $4,190.
Rent increases during the first half of the year are typically more accelerated, whereas during the second half of the year they’re expected to slow down, a typical pattern confirmed by rent evolution in past years, the report says.
June rents in the 20 largest renter mega-hubs
More highlights from the national average rent report
- In the first half of 2019, rents in 88% of the cities analyzed went up, while in 12% of cities apartment prices remained more or less the same.
- Which were the most popular search terms this year so far? “Rentals near me” and its variations had by far the largest search volume on Google, at 74%. The other primary keywords were “studio” (6%) and “cheap” (4%).
- Of the large markets analyzed, Manhattan ($4,190) was the only one where rents have decreased since January, although by just $6. Houston and Baltimore each saw modest rent growth of $12 in the last six months. On the flip side, Boston ($3,509) and Queens ($2,598) witnessed the most significant price gains in H1, $208 and $104 respectively.
- The largest increase recorded by a mid-size market was in Long Beach ($2,071), where rents swelled by $62 since the start of the year. Among the smaller markets, Cambridge ($3,210) and Sunnyvale ($3,057) lead the way with high 6-month net increases, $165 and $158 respectively.
Most-searched apartment types in first half of 2019
On RENTCafe, two-bedroom apartments have been the most-searched unit type since the beginning of the year, when they made up more than 50% of searches.
Traffic data shows that in June, around 44% of the searches on the website were for two-bedrooms, followed by almost 28% hits on one-bedrooms, and 17% on three-bedrooms.
Although popular in overall online searches, studios make up only around 12% of searches on RENTCafé.
Methodology:
RENTCafe.com is a nationwide apartment search website that enables renters to easily find apartments and houses for rent throughout the United States.
To compile this report, RENTCafe’s research team analyzed rent data across the 260 largest cities in the United States. The data comes directly from competitively rented (market-rate) large-scale multifamily properties (50+ units in size), via telephone survey. The data is compiled and reported by our sister company, Yardi Matrix, a business development and asset management tool for brokers, sponsors, banks and equity sources underwriting investments in the multifamily, office, industrial and self-storage sectors. Fully affordable properties are not included in the survey and are not reported in rental rate averages. The national average rent includes over 130 markets across the United States., as reported by Yardi Matrix.
