Rental Prices Are Smashing Records—but a Big Change Appears To Be Looming

Rents continued their unprecedented surge upward in June—but there are signs that it won’t last forever.

The median rent across the 50 largest metros climbed 14.1% year over year, to a median of $1,876, setting the record for highest rent ever tallied for a 16th straight month.

While rents are unquestionably higher than they’ve ever been, the numbers indicate that we might be nearing an end of the era of extremely steep, rapid rent hikes.

While rents continued to shoot up, causing plenty of pain for tenants, the growth in prices is slowing down. June saw the lowest year-over-year growth in prices of the year. It’s also a shift from January when rents shot up 17.6% compared with a year earlier.

There was a big shock that everybody felt. As things start to get back to normal in real life, things will start to get back to normal in the rental and for sale housing markets, too.

That slowdown doesn’t feel the same in all metros. Sun Belt cities and suburbs are still seeing astronomical growth rates in rent year over year. Miami continues to lead the pack, with median rents growing by 37.4% compared with June of last year.

Within the area served by the Select Group we have seen rents rise 10% to 15% depending on the city. California has rent control restrictions based on CPI plus a margin with a limit of 10% increase per annum.

There are a number of exemptions to California’s law, so please give me a call if you have any questions and I’ll connect you with our Select Property Management Company.