Rent prices ticked down 0.6% in October from the prior month as the supply of apartments coming onto the market outpaces demand.
The median asking rent fell to $1,619 in October, new data from Redfin showed Tuesday, a drop from last month but a slight 0.2% increase from a year ago.
This data comes one day before the government’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report for October. Shelter costs have been one of the biggest contributors to inflation over the last year, with shelter and food costs accounting for 75% of the increase in the CPI in September.
Softening in rent increases also comes as new multifamily housing units are being completed at the fastest pace on record since 1994, which has pushed lower in metros where supply surpasses demand, Redfin’s senior economist Sheharyar Bokhari explained.
For example, Tampa and Jacksonville have seen the largest rent declines following a pandemic-driven surge in demand, which led to a construction boom across several Sun Belt states.
In recent months, however, there’s been a shift in construction patterns with a slowdown in multifamily projects.
“Construction is slowing, but we will continue to see a wave of new apartment buildings coming onto the market in coming months, which is good news for renters looking for an affordable rental in 2025,” Bokhari said.
Overall, rents have largely remained flat over the past two years. But a widespread cooldown in rents hasn’t yet passed all the way through to shelter inflation readings, which have stayed stubbornly sticky for the past two years, due to how the BLS collects rent data.
In a press conference last week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said rents for newly signed leases “are experiencing very low inflation.”
“And what's happening is older…leases that are turning over are taking several years to catch up to where market leases are,” Powell added. “So that's just a catch-up problem. It's not really reflecting current inflationary pressures, it's reflecting past inflationary pressures.”
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