Low-end rentals are still driving national single-family rent growth

But the overall pace of annual rent growth is still slowing

Low-end rentals are still driving national single-family rent growth

US single family rents are still rising but the pace continues to slow.

The latest CoreLogic Single-Family Rent Index, released today, shows a national increase of 2.9% in June 2019, down from 3.0% a year earlier. The monthly average over the past year is 3.1%.

The index, which analyzes rent price changes nationally and among 20 metro areas, shows that low-end rentals – those properties with rent prices less than 75% of the regional median – gained 3.6% year-over-year, down from 3.8% a year earlier.

Meanwhile, high-end rentals – those properties with rent prices greater than 125% of a region’s median rent – gained 2.7%, unchanged from a year earlier.

“Increases in single-family rent across the country are fueled by increases in the number of renter households,” said Molly Boesel, principal economist at CoreLogic. “While the number of households grew overall in the United States through June, the growth was higher for renter households than for owner households, helping buoy demand for single-family rentals.”

With strong employment gains, Phoenix, AZ, remained the metro with the highest annual rent growth (7.1%) but the pace of growth was lower than the previous month (7.4%).

The lowest rent growth across the analyzed metros was in Miami (1.1%).