Single-Family Rental Rates Have 'Seemingly' Peaked

HouseCanary Q2 report shows a 0.2% YoY increase with LA and San Diego now the priciest markets.

Rent for single-family homes, nationally, remains historically high despite a slight increase in year-over-year price growth of 0.2%, according to the Q2 National Rental Report from HouseCanary.

That’s good enough, however for the data firm to suggest rents have peaked, though are expected to remain high as potential home buyers continue to hold off entering the purchase market.

“In Q2, we’ve seen the rental market continue to increase in median listings, prices, and days on the market,” Chris Stroud, Co-founder and Chief of Research at HouseCanary.

“While SFR prices only experienced slight year-over-year increases, the surge in available-for-rent inventory suggests that rental prices have reached their peak and are anticipated to trend downwards in the coming months.”

Stroud said that as interest rate hikes slow and inventory remains elevated, single-family rentals remain an attractive option for potential home buyers, providing stability to the rental market.

Median listing prices for SFRs in parts of the US are slowing, but East Coast and Industrial Midwest metropolitan statistical areas “continue to be hotspots” for investment due to “dramatic” price increases since Q2 2022, the report said.

Incidentally, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, Calif., (with a median price of $4,984) and San Diego-Carlsbad, Calif. (median price of $4,862), in Q2 passed Naples-Immokalee-Marco, Fla., as the priciest markets.

Through Q2 2023, rental properties stayed on the market for an average of 25.8 days, approximately 43.97% longer compared to the same period in 2022.

Up 165% year over year, Raleigh, NC, tops the list and is among six southern markets in HouseCanary’s list of the largest annual increases in days on market year-over-year.