It appears that more Americans are moving back in with family or roommates (or delaying striking out on their own) after a prolonged period of skyrocketing rent growth aggravated by broad-based inflation, according to ApartmentList.com. Now rents are falling fast.
Key Points
While the national median apartment rent increased +3.8% y/y during 2022 (after a huge +17.6% increase in 2021) according to Apartment List, trends began to weaken towards the end of the year.
Notably, the sequential declines in October – December 2022 represent the largest monthly declines since this data began to be tracked in 2017.
2021’s +17.6% y/y increase in the average rental price reflected a surge in demand after people began to return to normalcy after moving in with family members during covid lockdowns, pushing the vacancy rate from 7%+ when the initial consolidation began down to 4.1%.
