September 6, 2019 | by Anna Orendain
A recent article published on RENTCafé.com documents changes in rental costs across the United States over the past year. The main takeaway is that rents are increasing at a slower pace.
Taking its information from Yardi Matrix real estate data, RENTCafé’s report notes that average monthly rent in the U.S. reached $1,442 and increased 2.5% year-over-year, the slowest annual increase in 18 months.
The annual increase compares current rental prices with the prices that were available at the same time in the previous year. The 2.5% increase means that renters paid, on average, $35 more in rent in May 2019 versus May 2018.
After examining the 260 largest cities in the nation, RENTCafé found that 64% of major cities had average rents below the national $1,442 average. In fact, just 36% had rents above U.S. average.
But as cited in the RENTCafé article, Doug Ressler from Yardi Matrix argues that job growth must be considered when examining rental prices in large cities. For instance, Seattle houses the headquarters of both Microsoft and Amazon and, as a result, has experienced a 21% increase in jobs. Yet Seattle has only had a 13% rise in its construction of new housing, leading to a 96% increase in housing prices over eight years.
Looking at the top cities in Texas, Austin’s rent rose $52 over the past year, coming in as the highest in Texas and reaching $1,379. Following Austin were Dallas, which rose $39 over the past year to reach $1,207, and Houston, which rose just $7 over the past year to reach an average of $1,101.
The two most affordable large Texas cities on RENTCafé’s list were San Antonio (ranked 3rd most affordable among large cities) with average rental prices of $1,029 and then Fort Worth with a rental average of $1,099.
El Paso, which is still one of Texas’ major cities, boasted a much more affordable rental average of $773 a month — just $20 more than last year. Some of Texas’ smaller cities were even more affordable and showed almost no change in rental pricing over the past year. Killeen’s rent prices reached $735, Amarillo’s are at $732, and Brownsville came in as the most affordable at $722.
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