Multifamily rent growth reached a new record in March 2024, recording the largest gain in 20 months. Asking rents for multifamily units increased $8 during the month to $1,721; year-over-year growth grew 30 basis points to 0.9 percent—a normal seasonal growth pattern according to Yardi Matrix.
In the March 2024 National Multifamily Report, Matrix’s data provides “some level of comfort” for worried market observers. While 13 of the top metros had negative rent growth over the past year, only two metros reported negative growth in March.
Where is multifamily rent growth the highest?
As the economy continues to create jobs, with household growth boosted by immigration and wage growth, demand for multifamily units continues to rise. Markets in the midwest, such as Columbus, Ohio, Kansas City, Mo., and Indianapolis, Ind., have the highest multifamily rent growth. These metros trailed only New York City, N.Y., which topped the list with 5% year-over-year rent growth.
In March, San Francisco, Calif., was the only metropolitan city to report a growth in occupancy rate (0.1%) year-over-year. On the other hand, 21 metros have occupancy rates down by 0.5% or more, including Atlanta, Ga., and Indianapolis (both down 1.2%).
National Lease Renewals
The national lease renewal rate averaged 64.8% at the beginning of 2024—the first time it’s dropped below 65% in more than two years.
Lease renewals were highest in metros like New Jersey (82.6%), Philadelphia, Pa. (77.4%), and Miami, Fla. (70.4%); renewals were lowest in San Francisco (53.5%), Los Angeles (57.6%), and Austin, Texas (58.2%).
Renewal Rent Growth
Year-over-year renewal rent growth—the change for residents that are rolling over existing leases—declined in January 2024 as well, to 4.6 percent.
According to the report, renewal rents have been down every month since May 2023. The metros with the highest year-over-year renewal rent growth include Indianapolis (8%), San Diego (7.8%), and Orlando (7.7%). Just two metros reported negative growth, with Las Vegas, Nev. (–2%) and Austin (–1.5%) at the end of the list.
RELATED
- Multifamily rent growth rate unchanged at 0.3%
- Expenses per multifamily unit reach $8,950 nationally
- Multifamily rents stable heading into spring 2024
Overall outlook for multifamily housing in 2024
From the December 2023 National Multifamily Report by Yardi Matrix:
- Expenses, income, deliveries, and interest rates pose key challenges for the multifamily industry this year
- Though the market is expected to deliver over 500,000 units this year, there is a dramatic decrease in starts
- Recent interest rate declines alleviate potential distress for multifamily owners, but long-term stability remains uncertain
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
U.S. firm designing massive Taiwan project
MulvannyG2 Architecture is designing one of Taipei, Taiwan's largest urban redevelopment projects. The Bellevue, Wash., firm is working with developer The Global Team Group to create Aquapearl, a mixed-use complex that's part of the Taipei government's "Good Looking Taipei 2010" initiative to spur redevelopment of the city's Songjian District.
| Aug 11, 2010
Recycled Pavers Elevate Rooftop Patio
The new three-story building at 3015 16th Street in Minot, N.D., houses the headquarters of building owner Investors Real Estate Trust (IRET), as well as ground-floor retail space and 71 rental apartments. The 215,000-sf mixed-use building occupies most of the small site, while parking takes up the remainder.
| Aug 11, 2010
Housing America's Heroes 7 Trends in the Design of Homes for the Military
Take a stroll through a new residential housing development at many U.S. military posts, and you'd be hard-pressed to tell it apart from a newer middle-class neighborhood in Anywhere, USA. And that's just the way the service branches want it. The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines have all embarked on major housing upgrade programs in the past decade, creating a military housing construction boom.
| Aug 11, 2010
Loft Condo Conversion That's Outside the Box
Few people would have taken a look at a century-old cigar box factory with crumbling masonry and rotted wood beams and envisioned stylish loft condos, but Miles Development Partners did just that. And they made that vision a reality at Box Factory Lofts in historic Ybor City, Fla. Once the largest cigar box plant in the world, the Tampa Box Company produced boxes of many shapes and sizes, spec...
| Aug 11, 2010
World's tallest all-wood residential structure opens in London
At nine stories, the Stadthaus apartment complex in East London is the world’s tallest residential structure constructed entirely in timber and one of the tallest all-wood buildings on the planet. The tower’s structural system consists of cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels pieced together to form load-bearing walls and floors. Even the elevator and stair shafts are constructed of prefabricated CLT.
| Aug 11, 2010
CityCenter Takes Experience Design To New Heights
It's early June, in Las Vegas, which means it's very hot, and I am coming to the end of a hardhat tour of the $9.2 billion CityCenter development, a tour that began in the air-conditioned comfort of the project's immense sales center just off the famed Las Vegas Strip and ended on a rooftop overlooking the largest privately funded development in the U.
| Aug 11, 2010
Giants 300 Multifamily Report
Multifamily housing starts dropped to 100,000 in April—the lowest level in several decades—due to still-worsening conditions in the apartment market. Nonetheless, the April total is below trend, so starts will move progressively back to a still-depressed 150,000-unit pace by late next year.
| Aug 11, 2010
The softer side of Sears
Built in 1928 as a shining Art Deco beacon for the upper Midwest, the Sears building in Minneapolis—with its 16-story central tower, department store, catalog center, and warehouse—served customers throughout the Twin Cities area for more than 65 years. But as nearby neighborhoods deteriorated and the catalog operation was shut down, by 1994 the once-grand structure was reduced to ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Gold Award: Westin Book Cadillac Hotel & Condominiums Detroit, Mich.
“From eyesore to icon.” That's how Reconstruction Awards judge K. Nam Shiu so concisely described the restoration effort that turned the decimated Book Cadillac Hotel into a modern hotel and condo development. The tallest hotel in the world when it opened in 1924, the 32-story Renaissance Revival structure was revered as a jewel in the then-bustling Motor City.