A new report shows that apartment rent growths across the country while still rising are inching up at a far more sluggish pace.
RENTCafe reported that the national average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in May stood at $1,248. That’s up from the same month a year earlier, but only by relatively small 1.7 percent.
RENTCafe also found that the average rent in May for a two-bedroom apartment in the United States was $1,462, up 1.9 percent from a year earlier. The average rent for a three-bedroom apartment was $1,688 a month, an increase of 2.1 percent from May of 2017.
Overall, the national average rent grew by just 2 percent in May, according to RENTCafe. That’s the slowest start to the rental season since 2010, according to the numbers.
What about in the Midwest? RENTCafe found that the average monthly rent for an apartment in Chicago was $1,831 in May, up a tiny 0.8 percent from a year earlier. In Indianapolis, the average monthly rent was a far less expensive $825, up 2.4 percent from in May of 2017.
And in Columbus, renters could expect to pay an average of $889 a month for an aparment, a jump of 3.5 percent from May of last year.
Another interesting tidbit from the RENTCafe report? Apartment rents in Detroit continue to rise. In fact, Detroit’s average monthly apartment rent jumped 5.3 percent in May when compared to a year earlier. RENTCafe says that Detroit saw the biggest monthly rent jump in May among all of the United States’ largest cities. The monthly average apartment rent in Detroit stood at $1,017 in May.
In mid-size cities, Kansas City, Missouri, saw the fourth-biggest jump in average rents in May, with this figure increasing by 4.9 percent when compared to the same month a year earlier.
Wichita, Kansas, earned mention in the report, too, as having the lowest average apartment rent in May of all major cities. Renters here paid an average of $634 a month in rent in May.
Toledo, Ohio, with an average rent of $699; Independence, Missouri ($725); and Dayton, Ohio ($733) also ranked among those major cities with the lowest average rents in May.
