Apartment Rents Have Now Surpassed Where They Would Have Been Without the Pandemic

Apartment rent growth has grown faster than any other time, with rents now surpassing where they would have been had COVID-19 never happened.

ApartmentList’s national rent index increased by 2.3% from April to May, the third straight month of record-setting rent growth since the firm began tracking monthly rents in 2017. Year-over-year rent growth is now at 5.4% nationally, though “significant regional variation” exists.

Prices have begun to rebound in cities like San Francisco, where rents were falling fastest during the toughest days of the pandemic. Rents in San Francisco are still 17% lower than they were in March 2020, but prices there have also increased by 13% over the past four months alone. Nine of the ten cities that showed sharpest year-over-year rent declines during the pandemic have now seen four consecutive months of rent growth. Four of those cities—San Jose, Washington, D.C., Boston, and Minneapolis—have posted rent increases for five consecutive months. If the trend continues in Boston, where prices have increased by an average of 3.4% each month this year—rents will likely surpass March 2020 levels this summer.

And in Zoom boom towns like Boise, prices are continuing to climb fast, posting a 6.6% increase this month alone and a 31% increase since the start of the pandemic.  Boise stands at #1 in ApartmentList’s rankings for fastest year-over-year rent growth, and all of the 10 cities where rents grew fastest during the pandemic posted increases this month.

“More broadly, rental inventory across the nation remains tight, and as vaccine distribution continues to gain momentum, we may be seeing the release of pent up demand from renters who had been delaying moves due to the pandemic,” ApartmentList’s Chris Salviati notes in a recent report. “Whereas last year’s peak moving season was halted by the pandemic, this year’s seasonal spike appears to be making up for lost time.”