After a brief sigh of relief from sky-high rent spikes, it seems the rent rollercoaster is still on the upswing.
The latest data reveals that rent demands are once again on the rise in several major cities across the nation.
According to the latest rent report from Realtor.com, the Northeast and Midwest are bearing the brunt of these surges.
In the Windy City, tenants felt the pinch hardest, with Chicago rents soaring 4.3% since last March, pushing the median monthly rent to a hefty $1,846.
But don’t think New York City is off the hook. The Big Apple’s median monthly rent climbed to $2,876, marking a not-so-sweet 3.8% increase from last year.
Over in Beantown, Bostonians are feeling the squeeze too, with rents jumping 3.3% to hit a median of $3,023 a month.
Blame it on the land shortage, says Jiayi Xu, the economist at Realtor.com. Limited space for new family homes in the Northeast is putting the squeeze on supply, driving up demand and prices.
High housing prices and sky-high mortgage rates are also keeping folks shackled to the rental market for longer than they’d like, Xu explains.
Meanwhile, in the heartland, Kansas City and Indianapolis aren’t immune to the rent hike fever. With strong labor markets boasting low unemployment rates — 3.6% and 3.7%, respectively — landlords are seizing the opportunity to cash in, with rents jumping 3.4% and 3.3%, respectively.
But hold onto your wallets, there’s a glimmer of hope — sort of.
Despite these local rent hikes, the nation as a whole has seen rents decline for eight straight months, according to Realtor.com. Properties with two bedrooms or less in the top 50 metro areas saw an average drop of 0.3% in the last year.
Down South, rents took a steeper dip, slipping by an average of 1.5%.
However, the rising cost of housing is still a thorn in the economy’s side, driving up inflation since the pandemic’s end.
According to Xu and Danielle Hale’s report, stabilizing market rents could throw a wrench in the works.
“Stabilizing market rents could make it difficult to see further improvement in the overall rate of inflation, complicating the Fed’s policy decision and underscoring the need for additional housing construction to alleviate the supply shortage,” Xu and Hale wrote in their report.
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