The median asking rent climbed 0.8% year over year to $1,653—just $47 below the record high. Washington, D.C., Cincinnati and Chicago all saw double-digit increases.
The median U.S. asking rent rose 0.8% year over year in May to $1,653—the highest level since October 2022. That’s the second consecutive increase (rents climbed 0.9% year over year in April) following 11 months of decreases. Rents rose 0.5% on a month-over-month basis.
Apartment prices are closely tied to apartment supply. Multifamily construction surged during the pandemic moving frenzy, which pushed rent prices down because building owners were competing for tenants. While multifamily building starts have fallen below their 10-year historical average, there’s still a backlog of new units that are hitting the market every month, which is putting a lid on how much prices can grow.
“Demand from young renters remains high, as many of them are opting to stay put rather than contend with an increasingly unaffordable homebuying market,” said Redfin Senior Economist Sheharyar Bokhari. “But so far, rent price growth has been limited because there are enough new apartments to meet demand, even in the busiest time of year for the rental market.”
For the past three quarters, the rental vacancy rate has hovered at 6.6%. That’s the highest level since 2021, though it’s worth noting that the vacancy rate is no longer growing like it was during the pandemic.
While asking rents ticked up in May, they’re stable compared to recent years; they rose as much as 17.5% year over year during the pandemic, and then fell as much as 4.1% this past summer. Still, the median asking rent in May was just $47 below (-2.8%) August 2022’s record high of $1,700, posing affordability challenges for some renters.
In Washington, D.C., the median asking rent rose 11.1% year over year in May—the biggest jump among the 33 major U.S. metropolitan areas Redfin analyzed. Four other metros saw double-digit gains: Cincinnati (10.9%), Chicago (10.8%), Virginia Beach, VA (10.3%) and Minneapolis (10.3%).
The biggest asking rent declines were in Jacksonville, FL (-10.1%), San Diego (-8.7%), Austin, TX (-7.2%), Seattle (-5.9%) and Phoenix (-5.5%).
Rents are falling in the Sun Belt in part because the region has been building more apartments than other parts of the country (like the Midwest and Northeast) to meet demand brought on by the influx of people who moved in during the pandemic. But the pandemic housing boom is now in the rearview mirror, and property owners are facing vacancies, which is causing rents to cool.
Meanwhile, rents are rising in many Midwest metros because the region hasn’t been building as many apartments. The Midwest is also the most affordable region to live in, which helps bolster demand at a time when housing affordability is strained across most of the U.S.
Median asking rent figures in this report cover newly listed units in apartment buildings with five or more units. The median is calculated based on a rolling three-month period, i.e., the median asking rent for May 2024 covers rentals that were listed on Rent.com and Redfin.com during the three months ending May 31, 2024.
Metro-level data in this report covers 33 of the 50 most populous U.S. core-based statistical areas (CBSAs)—those for which Rent. and Redfin have sufficient rental data. The national figures are based on data for the entire U.S.
Asking rents reflect the current costs of new leases during each time period. In other words, the amount shown as the median asking rent is not the median of what all renters are paying, but the median asking price of apartments that were available for new renters during the report period.
