It Starts: Rents Drop in 10 of the Top 12 US Markets

Check out the rental trends in your own city. The construction boom of apartment and condo buildings around the US, especially in high-priced metro areas on the East Coast and the West Coast, is now colliding with the reality of squeezed household incomes and soaring rents. As a consequence, in many of the hottest markets – including San Francisco, where the explosion in rents is called ‘The Housing Crisis’ – rents have started to drop.
Landlords are competing with a surge of new supply from new apartment and condo developments. Incentives, such as one month free rent, a rarity in hot markets like San Francisco, have reappeared. And in some of the neighborhoods with new apartment towers, the ‘now leasing’ banners are everywhere.
On a month-to-month basis, median asking rents of one-bedroom apartments fell in 10 of the top 12 rental markets in August, according to the Zumper National Rent Report, which analyzes rental data from over 1 million active rental listings in the US.

This post was published at Wolf Street on September 2, 2016.