SANTA BARBARA, CA—There are two ways to look at one of the twin pillars of multifamily fundamentals (the other, of course, is occupancy), and both are correct. One way to view rent growth is that it's occurring at a slower pace these days than we saw in 2015 and 2016. Another is that it continues to occur in the vast majority of cities, and at a healthy clip.

Citing Yardi Matrix data, RentCafe reported Wednesday that rents grew year over year in 89% of the 250 largest US cities during January. Nine percent registered flat growth for the month, while just 2%, or six cities, experienced a Y-O-Y decline.

Overall, rents in these 250 cities grew 2.8% between January 2017 and last month. While that annual growth represents a deceleration from years prior, it's still ahead of the long-term average of 2.3%.