Rent Prices for Single Family Houses Are Still Going Up

Even as the overall U.S. rental market cools, single-family rentals are bucking the trend, a new report shows.

While the yearly rent growth turned negative in March after a period of double-digit price growth in 2021 and 2022, single-family monthly rental rates increased from $2,212 to $2,330 at the close of the first quarter of 2023 (last week of March) compared with the same period in 2022, a 5.3% increase. That was despite a 75% increase in inventory year-over-year, from 36, 688 to 64, 210, according to a HouseCanary analysis shared exclusively with USA TODAY.

As uncertainty looms in the housing market, with consecutive Fed interest rate hikes, elevated mortgage rates and still-high home prices, potential homebuyers are considering the single-family rental market, says Brandon Lwowski, director of research at HouseCanary.

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“Demand for those rentals, on the single-family detached side, is outpacing the inventory,” he says. “So we’re still seeing this rise in prices.”

Would-be homebuyers who were waiting for home prices to cool and waiting out high interest rates have helped push the median price of listings to reach multi-year highs.

At the close of the quarter, the median national rent for single-family detached rental was $2,395, a 20% increase since the same period in 2021 and a 6% increase since the same period in 2022. Additionally, there was a weekly average of 64,210 listings on the market, up 75% year over year.