Median apartment-rental costs in Arlington last month were the fifth highest among the nation’s 100 largest urban areas, as tracked by ApartmentList.
The county’s overall median monthly rental price of $2,512 was up 1.4 percent from a month before, up 3.6 percent year-to-date (second highest in the survey) and up 5.4 percent year-over-year.
Breaking down the numbers, the median price for one-bedroom units was $2,365; for two-bedroom units, it was $2,858.
Among the 100 large urban areas tracked by ApartmentList, the highest median rental price in April was recorded in Irvine, Calif., at $2,959. The lowest was in Fort Wayne, Ind., at $980.
Nationally, the median apartment-rental cost in April was $1,396, up 0.5 percent from a month before but down 0.8 percent from a year ago. In the Washington region, the median price of $2,138 was up 3.3 percent from a year before.
“While demand signals have been strong so far in 2024, so has supply growth,” Apartment List analysts noted. “As a result, rent growth has been positive but muted.”
The relatively small jump from March to April in the national median rental rate caught analysts’ attention.
This is typically the time of year when rent growth is accelerating heading into the busy moving season, so the fact that growth stalled this month could be a sign that the market is headed for another slow summer,” they wrote.
Drilling down, 83 of the nation’s 100 largest cities saw rents go up in April. But on a year-over-year basis, rent growth is positive for only 43 of these cities.
Many of the steepest year-over-year declines remain concentrated in Sun Belt cities that are rapidly expanding their multifamily inventory, such as Austin (-7.4% year-over-year), Raleigh (-4.4%), and Orlando (-3.9%).
On the supply side of the market, ApartmentList’s national vacancy index continues trending up, and stands now at 6.7 percent.
“After an historic tightening in 2021, multifamily occupancy has been slowly but consistently easing for over two years,” analysts noted. “And with this year expected to bring the most new apartment completions in decades, we expect that there will continue to be an abundance of vacant units on the market in the year ahead.”
For the full national report, see the Website at https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/national-rent-data. For the Arlington report, see the Website at https://www.apartmentlist.com/rent-report/va/arlington.
