Monthly Estimations in U.S. Residential Rental Markets and Affordability

Abstract

Rental markets around the country have recently spiked, causing significant issues in terms of affordability and availability and even prompting talk of nationwide rent controls. The drivers of this recent phenomenon will almost certainly be parsed out in future research. However, there is a critical and pressing need for timely information on recent rent movements in the nation’s rental markets and their affordability. This brief provides information (projected rents, degree of over- or underpricing relative to historic trends, year-over-year rent change, and affordability of the average rental unit) for 100 U.S. residential rental markets. A sample of the April 2023 Miami metro market is provided in this brief to deliver guidance on these estimations. Monthly reports are currently provided in the Waller, Weeks and Johnson Rental Index. The goal of the index is to facilitate more informed decision making by consumers, real estate professionals, and policymakers.

Keywords:

• Affordability
• monthly estimation
• rental markets
• residential
• Rental Index

Notes

1 ZORI updates data monthly with both new monthly estimates and changes to data from past months. This work is a moving average or trend analysis. Thus, the trend and resulting statistics are reset each month. Said another way, this work suffers the same critique as all other trend analysis, such as unemployment or GDP.

2 The Waller, Weeks and Johnson Rental Index is a joint production between the authors herein and their universities: The University of Alabama, Florida Gulf Coast University, and Florida Atlantic University.