Year-over-year rent growth remains negative in May

By Michael Rudy -May 28, 2025

The latest rent report from Apartment List shows that the national median monthly rent growth in May was 0.39 percent. Rents have now risen for 4 months in a row, which is typical for this time of year. However, year-over-year rent growth remains negative at -0.46 percent.

Apartment List reported the national median apartment rent to be $1,398, up $5 from last month’s revised figure. The national median rent is lower than it was in May 2022 when it was $1,403.

Charting the data

The first chart shows the history of the national median rent level since 2017. It is plotted year-by-year so that the annual change pattern is visible. The chart shows that in recent years rents have been rising in the spring and falling in the autumn, as was typical in the years before the pandemic. However, unlike the pre-pandemic era, rents have been declining on a year-over-year basis for 3 years in a row now.

The next chart shows the national average number of days a unit listed on Apartment List stayed on the market until it was leased. The chart shows that days-on-market (DOM) has been decreasing in recent months, following the usual annual pattern. However, DOM this year remain higher than for any year other than the pandemic year of 2020.

The next chart shows the year-over-year rate of rent growth since January 2018 plotted along with the national median apartment vacancy rate. The chart shows that the national average vacancy rate is continuing to climb and has now exceeded 7 percent, a record for the Apartment List dataset. Year-over-year rent growth is still negative, and it became more negative in the last 2 months.

The final chart shows the change in the national median apartment rent since January 2017 in nominal dollar terms along with two other measures of rent accounting for changes in income and price levels. The Income adjusted curve adjusts the rent by the change in average hourly earnings of all employees as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Inflation adjusted curve adjusts the rent by the general change in price level as measured by the not-seasonally-adjusted Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers (CPI-U).

The curves show that, when adjusted for wage growth or for the general increases in prices, rents are below their pre-pandemic levels. Since January 2017, average rents are up 30.8 percent while average hourly earnings are up 38.9 percent and inflation as measured by the CPI-U is up 32.5 percent.

Ranking the metros

Apartment List provides the underlying data they collected in compiling their report and that data was used to create the tables, below. The tables look at the 50 most populous metropolitan statistical areas defined by the U.S. Census Bureau and identify the top and bottom 10 metros for year-over-year rent growth. The tables provide the median monthly rent in the metro, the percentage change from the prior month’s rent level (MoM Metro), the annual percentage change in rent (YoY Metro) and the metro’s vacancy rate. They also list the days on market (DOM) metric, although this data is not available for all metro areas.

The first table shows the 10 metros with the largest annual rent percentage increases.

Metro	Metro Rent	MoM Metro	YoY Metro	Vacancy rate	DOM
San Diego	$2,289	0.03	4.4	6.5	27.7
Chicago	$1,684	1.44	4.3	5.0	23.0
Portland	$1,668	0.52	3.3	6.1	32.8
Virginia Beach	$1,603	0.82	3.1	5.8	20.3
Phoenix	$1,403	(0.21)	3.0	8.1	27.7
Cincinnati	$1,204	0.83	2.9	5.3	28.0
Hartford	$1,590	1.12	2.7	3.8	24.0
Kansas City	$1,344	1.05	2.6	6.5	28.7
San Francisco	$2,639	0.61	2.6	4.6	30.3
Raleigh	$1,420	0.72	2.3	8.7	33.0

The next table shows the 10 metros with the smallest annual rent increases.

Metro	Metro Rent	MoM Metro	YoY Metro	Vacancy rate	DOM
Austin	$1,353	(0.21)	(6.3)	10.0	38.3
Denver	$1,711	0.64	(4.8)	8.7	30.7
Philadelphia	$1,552	0.61	(3.1)	5.5	28.0
Tampa	$1,535	(0.16)	(2.9)	6.8	26.3
Salt Lake City	$1,465	0.36	(2.8)	8.4	33.7
Sacramento	$1,769	0.68	(2.8)	4.3	21.3
Jacksonville	$1,366	0.38	(2.2)	7.6	27.0
Providence	$1,498	0.33	(2.1)	4.3
Dallas	$1,448	0.26	(2.1)	8.6	33.7
Atlanta	$1,453	0.13	(1.9)	7.7	29.0

In March, 30 of the 50 most populous metros saw their rents rise on a year-over-year basis. In addition, 41 of the 50 most populous metros saw rents rise on a month-over-month basis.

The complete Apartment List report covers many more metros and also provides city, county and state data. It gives readers with the opportunity to download their data sets. The latest report can be found here.

Source article