Is It Going to Be a Stable-Rent Summer?

For both apartments and single-family homes, asking rent hasn’t changed much since last month. Jonas Bordo of Dwellsy explains why he’s forecasting a flat-rent summer.

Los Altos, CA (June 2023)—Summer is an expensive season. Vacations, summer camps, lawn care, gas prices, and more eat away at your budget faster than a rogue wave washing over a sandcastle. But if you’re a renter, Jonas Bordo, CEO and cofounder of Dwellsy, says there’s some relief in sight—at least the amount you have to send the landlord isn’t rising along with the temperatures.

“After seeing rent increases between March and April, May’s numbers have largely flattened out,” says Bordo, coauthor along with Hannah Hildebolt of Everything You Need to Know About Renting But Didn’t Know to Ask: All the Insider Dirt to Help You Get the Best Deal and Avoid Disaster (Matt Holt, August 2023, ISBN: 978-1-6377439-2-8, $21.95). “It’s possible that despite adhering to established seasonal trends, last month’s growth was a short-term blip, and we are now heading into a period of moderation.”

From April to May 2023, median asking rent for three-bedroom single-family rental homes (SFRs) stayed the same at $1,875. To put this in perspective, year-over-year rent growth since May 2022 is 4.5 percent, or $80.

“That last piece of data is really interesting, because it shows that we are at the end of a period of rapid rent growth for SFRs,” says Bordo. “In May 2022, annual rent increases were at 12.9 percent. The current rate, 4.5 percent, is trailing just below inflation.”

Median asking rent for one-bedroom apartments did rise a (teeny-tiny) bit since April: 0.5 percent, or $6. But since year-over-year prices are down 1.1 percent ($15), apartment-dwellers still have plenty to smile about.

Dwellsy, the largest home rental listing platform in the country, regularly mines its 14+ million residential rental listings for statistics and data. Because Dwellsy allows landlords to post listings free of charge, it has a pool of data that’s more diverse—and more representative of the true rental landscape—than that of pay-to-play listing services. Each month, Dwellsy breaks down this data regionally across the U.S. so renters and landlords can see up-to-date trends in rental housing and current affordability in over 250 markets. For a more detailed look at Dwellsy’s rent price analysis methodology, see this article.

The following graphs show median asking rent by property type for each month in the past year. One-bedroom apartments were chosen as a focus group because they are similar to two-bedroom apartments in terms of inventory, but are more price-accessible. Three-bedroom homes were chosen because they are by far the most common rental home type.

“It’s easy to see why apartment renters might be disgruntled by the recent rise in prices, small though it may be,” comments Bordo. “Their asking rent has remained relatively flat for over two years, and has actually declined by 1.5 percent during this time.

“In contrast, single-family home rentals have been on a steep upward trajectory with relatively few price drops,” he continues. “Thanks in large part to the pandemic, the ensuing shift to remote and flexible work, and rising mortgage rates, demand has surged. Asking rent for a three-bedroom SFR has risen 23.6 percent since January 2021.”