ApartmentAdvisor National Rent Report

This month’s report focuses on three key findings:

1. There are only 12 cities where rent is up MoM and YoY. Half are in the Midwest.
2. Rent is down MoM and YoY in the Southwest region, with Texas seeing the biggest decreases over time.
3. Iowa saw the biggest rent increase MoM on the state level.

Once again, the Midwest bears the brunt of the country’s biggest rent increases.

For most of the country, the rent price of a one-bedroom apartment is either down or flat when compared with May 2024. While these decreases are not huge (the average rent decrease in the 45 cities that are seeing lower rent in June is only 2.43%), it’s a welcome change during summer, which is the country’s peak renting season. Another encouraging sign for renters: Of these 45 cities, only 13 have higher rent prices in 2024 than they did this time last year.

Unfortunately, it’s not such a rosy rent story in the Midwest, according to our rent data. While some Midwestern cities saw a monthly rent decline in June (Cleveland, OH; Akron, OH; Chicago, IL; and Ann Arbor, MI actually have the largest rent decreases of any city this month, all down more than 5%), asking rents for one-bedrooms are still more expensive this year than in previous years for nearly all cities. Half of the cities on our list that saw both month-over-month and year-over-year rent growth in June are located in the Midwest, with Cedar Rapids (+8% MoM, +24% YoY) and Des Moines, IA (+5% MoM, +20% YoY) seeing the biggest hikes. This doesn’t come as a surprise this month, as rent in the Midwest has been trending upward for the last years.

There’s a reason Midwestern cities often top our annual Best Cities for College Grads list: They’re historically affordable and they offer ample career opportunities due to the significant number of companies with corporate headquarters in the area, allowing renters to get more bang for their buck. It’s clear that the Midwest has been gaining popularity, but the region could be heading towards a housing crisis if construction does not meet up with demand.

Everything is bigger in Texas — including the rent drops.

The Southwest is seeing rent decreases across the board. Of the 12 Southwestern rental markets that we track, only two saw MoM increases (Houston and El Paso, TX) and only one had a YoY increase (Tucson, AZ) for one-bedroom apartments. However, these increases are marginal; they’re all below 1%. Meanwhile, Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio, TX are all had asking rent prices that were over 10% lower than they were in June of last year. This is in line with the decreasing rent we’ve seen across Texas in the last several years.

The majority of Texas cities that we track saw rent peak during the pandemic around July ’22 (with the exception of Corpus Christi, where it peaked in Oct. ’23). Since then, prices have been rapidly decreasing, even in boomtowns like Austin.