The national median rent for residential properties fell for the third straight month as demand cools off and a supply of new apartments boosts the inventory, according to a report.
The national median rent price fell 0.78% in December 2023 to $1,964, marking the third consecutive month of decline after rent prices peaked in August 2022 at $2,054, per a new report from apartment marketplace Rent.com. December's decline followed a 2.09% decline in November and slightly below a third of 1% in October.
Regionally, rent prices fell in the South and the West. However, rent prices climbed in the Northeast and Midwest, with a 3.7% increase in the latter region. Asking rents in the Northeast, currently at $2,439, continue to be the highest in the country.
Despite the recent declines, rental prices are 1.13% higher in December than they were in January last year when rents were at $1,942.
The modest drop-off comes as demands for rental properties soften. In response, some landlords have begun offering concessions in hopes of bringing in more tenants.
Rental prices are also expected to continue ticking down due to an expected influx of apartments in the market leading to rising supply and vacancy.
"There's a lot of supply in the pipeline," Danielle Hale, Realtor.com's chief economist, said in an interview with Yahoo Finance. "So we expect to see this softening trend continue. And that's going to give renters' incomes a chance to catch up."
Households in the US Struggle To Pay Rent
The recent decrease in rents across the U.S. comes as more than 22 million households, or half of all renters in the country, spent over 30% of their income on rent and utilities, a new report from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies found.
Additionally, the study found that 12.1 million households are spending more than 50% of their income on housing. Among them, 39% spent less on food and 42% spent less on healthcare to be able to pay rent. Some renters also chose to live in overcrowded housing conditions.
