Figure 1: Year-Over-Year Changes New Lease Prices, 2017-2024
Data Source: RealPage
Notes: Monthly multifamily new lease price data through June
2024.
Line graph shows year-over-year percentage changes in national new lease prices. Values hover around 2-4 percent from 2018-2019, drop to negative territory in 2020 (approximately -2 percent), then spike dramatically to peak at 15 percent in 2022. After the 2022 peak, new lease prices decline to around 2-3 percent by 2024, returning to pre-pandemic levels.
Figure 2: Geographic Distribution of Multifamily Renter Households by
Pre-Pandemic Rent and Rent-to-Income, by Census Region
a) Pre-Pandemic Rent Quartiles
b) Pre-Pandemic Rent-to-Income Quartiles
Data Source: 2015-2019 5-year ACS
Notes: 2015-2019 5-year ACS PUMA-level data for the PUMAs in both
RealPage and ACS data. PUMAs weighted using renter households in
multifamily housing. Of the multifamily housing renter households in the
ACS, over 95 percent of them are in PUMAs that are covered in RealPage.
Quartiles are weighted such that there is an even number of renter
households in multifamily housing units in each quartile.
Two horizontal stacked bar charts show the distribution of multifamily renter households across quartiles of 2019 pre-pandemic rent and rent-to-income by Census Region. Panel (a) shows results for rent quartiles. The share of multifamily renter households illustrates significant regional variation across different pre-pandemic rent levels. The Northeast and West regions dominate higher quartiles, while Midwest and South regions dominate the bottom quartiles. Panel (b) shows results for rent-to-income quartiles. The West region has the largest representation in the highest quartile, and the Midwest has the smallest representation in the upper quartiles. The Northeast region is relatively evenly distributed across quartiles, in contrast to the rent quartiles in Panel (a). The Midwest and South represent much lower shares of the bottom quartile compared to the rent quartiles in Panel (a).
Figure 3: New Lease Price Growth 2017-2024, by Pre-Pandemic Rent and
Rent-to-Income
a) Pre-Pandemic Rent Quartile
b) Pre-Pandemic Rent Affordability (Median Rent-to-Income Quartile)
Data Sources: 2015-2019 ACS, 2019 and 2022 1-Year ACS, MCDC Geocorr
crosswalk
Notes: Monthly multifamily new lease price data through June 2024.
Aggregated to county-level using unit weights and PUMA-level using MCDC
Geocorr county to PUMA 2012 crosswalk. To compute average new lease
price within quartiles, PUMA level average rents were weighted by the
share of multifamily renter households within each quartile.
Year-over-changes calculated as changes in average new lease price
rather than average of year-over-year changes within a quartile.
Quartiles are weighted such that there is an even number of renter
households in multifamily housing units in each quartile.
The chart displays year-over-year percent change in new lease prices from 2018 to 2024, with five lines, one for the national data and one each for the first, second, third, and fourth quartiles. Panel (a) shows the quartiles by 2019 pre-pandemic rent. All lines show similar patterns with fluctuations between 2-5 percent growth from 2018-2020. In 2020, the lines diverge, with fourth quartile dropping most dramatically to approximately negative 5 percent growth in new lease prices. All quartiles then experienced a dramatic spike, peaking at similar levels of 12-15 percent growth in 2022. After this peak, growth rates declined across all quartiles, returning to 2-5 percent by 2024, with first quartile showing slightly higher growth in the most recent period. Panel (b) shows quartiles by 2019 pre-pandemic rent-to-income. In contrast to Panel (a), all lines follow a similar pattern rather than diverging substantially in 2020: lower growth (2-5 percent) during 2018-2020, then a sharp decline into negative territory during early pandemic, followed by a dramatic spike peaking at approximately 15-16 percent in 2022. After this peak, all lines show a rapid decline through 2023, stabilizing around 3-4 percent growth by 2024.