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Prices for single-family rentals (SFRs) marked nearly a year of decelerating growth during March, a new analysis found.
Annual single-family rent growth decelerated to a rate of 4.3 percent during March, according to the latest CoreLogic Single-Family Rent Index (SFRI), the 11th straight month of declines in the rate of growth.
The slowdown was primarily driven by higher-priced rentals, with price gains in the lower-priced tier of rentals still about double the rate they were before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to CoreLogic.
Molly Boesel | Principal economist at CoreLogic
“Single-family rent price gains continued to slow year over year in March, with growth at about one-third of the rate as observed one year earlier,” said Molly Boesel, principal economist at CoreLogic. “The slowdown is more pronounced in the higher-priced tier, where growth is now about the same as it was before the pandemic. However, gains in the lower tier are still twice the pre-pandemic rate, with all tracked metro areas posting increases at that price level.”
To gather an in-depth view of single-family rental prices across different market segments, CoreLogic examines four tiers of rental prices and two property-type tiers.
CoreLogic
An analysis of four price tiers of single-family rental prices performed by CoreLogic found that lower-priced SFRs were up 6.7 percent from March 2022, down from a 13.4 percent annual growth rate recorded last year, while lower-middle priced rentals were up 5.3 percent from March 2022, down from a 14.1 percent growth rate recorded last year.
Higher middle-priced rentals meanwhile were up only 4.3 percent from March 2022, down from the 12.9 percent growth rate recorded last year, and higher-priced rentals — those priced at 125 percent or more than the regional median — were up only 2.9 percent from last year, down from the 12.9 percent annual increase recorded in March 2022.
Attached rentals, meanwhile, saw a yearly price increase of 5 percent compared to the 4.3 percent increase for detached rentals.
Of the 20 cities analyzed for SFR data, Charlotte, North Carolina, had the highest year-over-year increase in rent growth at 7.7 percent. Orlando and St. Louis followed, clocking 6.6 and 6.4 percent increases respectively. Both Las Vegas and Phoenix — Sun Belt markets that heated up to new highs during the pandemic — both saw annual price declines of 0.2 percent.
The CoreLogic data is only the latest of several recent reports that have made it clear that rental prices are only going to continue slowing compared to the pandemic years, as they have for much of the past year.
Despite the slowing trend, rental prices are still largely going up on a monthly basis, at a rate much higher than was typically seen before the pandemic.
CoreLogic RentalTrends produces median rent-price data monthly from a database of more than 11 million rental properties — more than 75% of all U.S. individual-owned rental properties — covering all 50 states and 17,500 zip codes, according to the company.
