When renters are looking for apartments, what are they looking for? Not surprisingly, they’re focused on price.
That’s one of the takeaways from the year-end rent report released this week by Yardi Matrix. As part of the report, Yardi studied Google search phrases. The company found that phrases containing the words “cheap apartments” and “studios” had, by far, the largest volume in 2018.
Yardi Matrix reported that these phrases appeared in almost half of all apartment-related online searches this year. According to the report, “cheap apartments” accounted fo rmore than a quarter of all rental-related Google searches while “studios” – the most affordable of all apartment types – accounted for 23.88 percent.
Rising interest rates have been a boon to apartment landlords. Yardi Matrix in its year-end rent report pointed to these as one reason why monthly apartment rents remained so strong as 2018 comes to a close.
Yardi Matrix reported that the national average apartment rent stood at $1,419 in December. That is $42 above what renters were paying during the same time a year earlier.
In Chicago the average apartment rent hit $1,889 in December. That’s an increase of 4.9 percent, or $88, from the average rent of $1,801 a year earlier.
Doug Ressler, director of business intelligence at Yardi Matrix, said that he expects demand for apartments to continue to grow in 2019.
“Healthy job creation, a robust economy and positive demographic trends are promoting the formation of new households and stimulating demand for rentals,” Ressler said in a statement. “Vacancies are likely to remain low and declining in most markets, particularly among Class-B and -C multifamily buildings.”
