The latest rent report from Apartment List shows that the national median monthly rent growth in September was -0.48 percent, a larger decline than last month’s 0.13 percent drop. Year-over-year rent growth was -0.71 percent. Apartment List reported the national median apartment rent to be $1,405, down $7 from last month’s figure.
Charting the data
The first chart shows the history of the national median rent level since 2017. It is plotted year-by-year so that the annual change pattern is visible. The chart shows that rents in 2024 and 2023 have been following parallel tracks, similar to how rents in 2019 paralleled those in 2018. However, rents in 2024 are lower than those in 2023 while rents in 2019 were higher than those in 2018.
The next chart shows the rate of month-over-month rent growth, again plotted by year so that the annual pattern is visible. The chart shows that the month-over-month rent growth rate for September 2024 is the lowest of any September tracked by Apartment List except for September 2023.
The next chart shows the year-over-year rate of rent growth since January 2018 plotted along with the national median apartment vacancy rate.
The chart shows that the national average vacancy rate is creeping up, but very slowly. To two digits, the vacancy rate has been 6.7 percent for the last 6 months. However, to 3 digits, it has risen from 6.66 percent to 6.73 percent.
The final chart shows the change in the national median apartment rent since January 2017 in nominal dollar terms along with two other measures of rent accounting for changes in income and price levels. The Income adjusted curve adjusts the rent by the change in average hourly earnings as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Inflation adjusted curve adjusts the rent by the general change in price level as measured by the not-seasonally-adjusted Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers (CPI-U).
The curves show that rents have been trending lower in inflation-adjusted terms since the summer of 2021 and in income-adjusted terms since the summer of 2022. Since January 2017, average rents are up 31.3 percent while average hourly earnings are up 36.0 percent and inflation as measured by the CPI-U is up 29.7 percent.
Ranking the metros
Apartment List provides the underlying data they collected in compiling their report and that data was used to create the tables, below. The tables look at the 50 most populous metropolitan statistical areas defined by the US Census Bureau and identify the top and bottom 10 metros for year-over-year rent growth. The tables provide the median monthly rent in the metro, the metro’s vacancy rate, the annual percentage change in rent (YoY Metro) along with the percentage change from the prior month’s rent level (MoM Metro). They also list the percentage changes in rent for the metro areas compared to the rent levels in February 2020, right before the pandemic struck (Feb 20).
The first table shows the 10 metros with the largest annual rent percentage increases. Many of these cities are in the northern “rust belt”. The average of the vacancy rates in these metros is 5.7 percent.
| Metro | Metro Rent | Vacancy rate | YoY Metro | MoM Metro | Feb 20 |
| Cleveland | $1,106 | 5.8 | 5.2 | (1.19) | 29.5 |
| Hartford | $1,566 | 4.7 | 4.2 | (0.35) | 27.0 |
| Louisville | $1,215 | 5.5 | 3.9 | (0.63) | 35.3 |
| Virginia Beach | $1,579 | 4.7 | 3.7 | (0.30) | 34.0 |
| Grand Rapids | $1,265 | 8.1 | 3.7 | (0.39) | 38.2 |
| Washington DC | $2,196 | 5.2 | 3.5 | (0.23) | 18.8 |
| Detroit | $1,229 | 5.1 | 3.0 | (0.17) | 27.1 |
| Milwaukee | $1,228 | 6.3 | 2.9 | (0.60) | 23.1 |
| Pittsburgh | $1,184 | 6.4 | 2.7 | (0.84) | 18.9 |
| Boston | $2,239 | 5.5 | 2.5 | (0.56) | 39.8 |
The next table shows the 10 metros with the smallest annual rent increases. Many of these metros are seeing high levels of new product coming to market. The average of the vacancy rates in these metros is 7.9 percent.
| Metro | Metro Rent | Vacancy rate | YoY Metro | MoM Metro | Feb 20 |
| Austin | $1,415 | 9.4 | (7.3) | (0.91) | 13.1 |
| Raleigh | $1,433 | 8.9 | (4.8) | (0.99) | 24.2 |
| Jacksonville | $1,367 | 7.4 | (4.3) | (0.35) | 24.4 |
| Atlanta | $1,470 | 7.5 | (3.8) | (0.51) | 20.5 |
| Dallas | $1,468 | 8.3 | (3.3) | (0.67) | 21.1 |
| Charlotte | $1,363 | 8.0 | (3.3) | (0.51) | 22.5 |
| San Antonio | $1,247 | 8.9 | (3.0) | (0.47) | 16.4 |
| San Diego | $2,281 | 5.9 | (2.9) | (0.44) | 29.8 |
| Phoenix | $1,439 | 7.5 | (2.7) | (0.56) | 25.4 |
| Tampa | $1,517 | 7.1 | (2.5) | (0.70) | 35.7 |
In September, 31 of the 50 most populous metros saw their rents rise on a year-over-year basis. However, 48 of the metros saw rents fall on a month-over-month basis, compared to only 26 last month. The two metros that saw rents rise for the month were Oklahoma City and Birmingham.
The complete Apartment List report covers many more metros and also provides city, county and state data. It gives readers with the opportunity to download their data sets. The latest report can be found here.
