The Rent Cafe reports the Average Rent Reaches $1,436 in April.
Key Points
- The national average rent reached $1,436 in April 2019, up by 3% ($42) year over year, and by 0.3% ($5) month over month, the second month in a row to witness a 0.3% m-o-m growth. Compared to last April, renters pay $42 more on average per month following relatively flat m-o-m rent increases during the off-season.
- Of the 253 cities included, 64% have average rents below the $1,436 national average, while 36% have average rents above.
- Average rent was just shy of $650/month in the nation’s most affordable rental market – Wichita, KS, while rents in Manhattan, NY hit $4,130.
20 Largest Metro Areas
BLS Shelter Components
BLS Shelter Components Year-Over-Year
Curiously, the BLS is reporting higher prices than the Rent Cafe.
Do you smell a BLS recount coming?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
How did they miss Miami with average monthly rent of over $1700
So average rent is about even with inflation. Yawn.
Break $1500 avg by years end ,at an annual inflation/shrinkflation rate (real number)of 15-16%,could see avg rent soar to wait for it………2k a month by 2021!
Sounds like “inflation” is pretty much 3%. So what’s the Fed worried about?
Denver still booming. Every time I go there I’m amazed to see more buildings in places that aren’t all that desirable, like right up against the freeway. Or down in the swampy area next to the Platte river.
Or in the Mile High Stadium parking lot…
Gotta keep those sharecroppers picking…. How else could deadweight nothings live large off of “asset appreciation,” without producing a single worth vile anything, in their entire, worthless little life?
I’m surprised DC is #3 on the list. I guess it’s because of our transient population. Many want to rent because they don’t plan on staying long.
Los Angeles: $2,471
In 1977, a small one bedroom in Glendale cost me $400 a month. In the last election, L.A. had a rent control issue on the ballot. Ads promoting it contained the phrase, “…because the rent’s too damn high.”
I read the other day that the state government is looking at ending zoning laws that protect single family zoning, so that more apartment buildings can be stuffed into a particular area. New mid rise apartment buildings are filling up the downtown area of Glendale, turning streets into mini canyons. Some Burbank residents are expressing concerns of apartment construction plans creating over crowding issues.
Too many people, not enough housing. The democrat controlled state government, however, is encouraging illegal aliens to come across the border, which isn’t helping.
“I read the other day that the state government is looking at ending zoning laws that protect single family zoning, so that more apartment buildings can be stuffed into a particular area.”
Darn! I guess even broken clocks….
Fat chance the dimbulbs will do anything meaningful, though. If they were that competent, they’d never make it in Sacramento in the first place.
San Francisco had fantastic zoning laws during the Gold Rush: Crash your boat onto the beach, drag it out of the breakwater, and you had a house. Add to it with driftwood, or whatever lumber the Russians up the coast would sell you in exchange for gold. That’s how one of the world’s great cities got built.
Although, with a bit of oversight from the fire marshal, once things got a bit tighter…. But the point is: To make it maximally easy for all comers to come there and set up shop. Rather than to hide behind coercive government, for the sole and only purpose of facilitating deadweight leeches who produce nothing in robbing those who do, by way of waaaaaay-above-free-market usury rent, on the deadweight leeches behalf.
But, California being worthess, dysfunctional California, I’m sure apartment buildings will only be permitted in “those people’s” back yards. Not “ours.” Hence won’t matter one iota.
“…I’m sure apartment buildings will only be permitted in “those people’s” back yards. Not “ours.” Hence won’t matter one iota.”
Oh, don’t you worry about NIMBY! Where a buck on real estate can be made, it will be made. Just ask the long time residents of Costa Mesa who used to enjoy single story, ranch style homes on sprawling lots. Well, soon the fashion became to buy the house, tear it down, and build two duplexes with the minimum offsets. Now grandma is wedged between eight households instead of two. And two doors down is a “rehab facility” housing 10 people. All the investors are doing great, but grandma isn’t as happy.
I sympathize with both parties. Seems unfair grandma should have the neighborhood make-up change on her like that, yet housing should increase when the population increases.
“Seems unfair grandma should have the neighborhood make-up change on her like that”
No more unfair than she should have traffic increase as population increases. Nor that she should have to put up with longer lines at the grocery store.
Free people build whatever they want on their lots. And invite as many families to stay with them as they please. They don’t beg neither grannies, nor slimeballs in Sacramento nor zoning boards, for “permission” to do so.
As for Costa Mesa, try building a 60 story tower on your lot on the beach, or on Balboa. That’s where “We” live. As opposed to “those people” stuck inland…..
Judging by prices it seems most Socal residents want to live on the beach. Or at least to have a second home, or four, there. Hence that’s where free markets, responding to demand, would provide the most housing. Any other outcome, is just a variation on grey communist concrete blocks and Uncle Toms’ cabins.