Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Since so many homeowners are joining millennials in the rental segment of the home market lately, I have been keeping a close eye on news regarding apartment-related activity across the nation.

With that in mind, we recently received some timely news from The Apartment List via the company's May 2015 Rental Price Monitor. That report provides a good snapshot of trends in 100 U.S. cities, using data from hundreds of thousands of listings from apartmentlist.com.

According to the report, nationwide, average rents increased by 3.6 percent for a 1 bedroom and 2.7 percent for a 2 bedroom between May 2014 and May 2015. Those numbers reflect month over month increases of 0.5 percent for both 1-bedroom and 2-bedrooms, respectively.

In May, the average price for an available 1 bedroom ticked up to $980 and the average price for a 2 bedroom was $1020 per month. Cities on the coasts continue to be the nation’s most expensive, as the Eastern seaboard, California, and Pacific Northwest markets all made it into the Top 10 Cities with Highest Rents.

Among key markets on apartmentlist.com's report are:

San Francisco: May continued to see rapid growth in the city by the Bay, with same unit 2 bedroom prices increasing 1.7 percent over April and 5.2 percent over last year. This rate of year over year growth is nearly double the nationwide rental price increase, and the average available 2 bedroom cost a whopping $4,600 in May versus $1,020 nationally.

Washington, D.C.: Two bedroom units in Washington DC now average $2,880 after increasing 0.2 percent between April and May. Despite this month over month change, DC rents continue to trend down on a year over year basis (2 bedrooms down 4.0 percent) continuing the decline that started in October 2014.

Seattle: Seattle has also been firmly entrenched as one of the nation’s most expensive cities, with average rents for 2 bedrooms priced at $2,100. Year over year prices have increased 6.6 percent and month over month prices increased 2.1 percent, indicating that prices may continue to surge through the summer.

Notable cities from the interior that barely missed the cut include Chicago (No. 12), Denver (No. 13), Minneapolis (No. 15), and Austin (No. 16).  

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