The days of big monthly increases in apartment rents might be over, at least for now. That’s one of the takeaways from Zumper’s February National Rent Report.
According to the report, rents for both one-bedroom and two-bedroom units grew 0.3 percent last month. The median rent for one-bedroom apartments across the country hit $1,220, while that number rose to $1,464 for two-bedroom units.
When compared on a year-over-year basis, one-bedroom rents were flat while the monthly rent for two-bedroom units rose 0.7 percent.
And in a bit of interesting Midwest news, St. Louis saw its one-bedroom rent jump 4.9 percent, the largest monthly growth rate in the country. Still, even with this increase, the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in St. Louis was a relatively affordable $860 in February. Two-bedroom rents in St. Louis were on the rise, too, jumping 4.3 percent in February to a median of $1,200.
In other Midwest news, the median monthly one-bedroom apartment rent in Chicago climbed to $1,520, up 2 percent from the previous month but down 3.2 percent from a year ago. For two-bedroom units, the median monthly rent hit $1,730 in February, up 1.8 percent from January but down a healthy 8.5 percent from a year ago.
In Nashville, the median one-bedroom rent was $1,410 in February, up just 0.7 percent from a month earlier and flat when compared to the same month in 2019. The median rent for two-bedroom apartmentes was $1,450, up 3.6 percent when compared both to one month and one year earlier.
And in Minneapolis, the median one-bedroom apartment stood at $1,400 in February, up a fairly flat 0.7 percent from January and completely flat when compared to February of 2019. Median two-bedroom rents actually fell in Minneapolis, dropping 2.8 percent in February to $1,750. That also represents a drop of 9.3 percent when compared to the same month one year earlier.
