Tracking rents is important to understanding housing market trends. For example, the sharp rise in rents helped us infer a sharp increase in household formation in 2021 (see September 2021 information: Household formation drives housing demand). Currently, rents are under pressure as household formation slows and multifamily completions increase.
Rent increased by 0.5% from the previous month and decreased by 0.8% from the same month last year.
Rent increases follow seasonal patterns. Rent increases usually occur in the spring and summer, while prices usually decrease slightly in the fall and winter. We are now moving into the busy season, with national median rents increasing for three consecutive months after declining for six consecutive months from August 2023 to January 2024. However, the pace of that positive rent growth slowed slightly this month, and rents rose. After rising 0.6% in March, it rose 0.5% month-on-month in April.