Annual US Single-Family Rent Growth Holds Steady in May but Remains at Record High

• May represents the first time that annual price growth did not accelerate month over month since January 2021
• For the 10th straight month, Miami led the nation for year-over-year rent growth, at nearly 40%

IRVINE, Calif., July 19, 2022 — CoreLogic©, a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider, today released its latest Single-Family Rent Index (SFRI), which analyzes single-family rent price changes nationally and across major metropolitan areas.

Annual U.S. single-family rent growth remained at a record high in May 2022, posting a 13.9% increase from May 2021. This growth matched April’s increase, representing the first time that price growth did not accelerate from the previous month since January 2021. Sustained high rent prices are partially due to a robust labor market, with the national unemployment rate at 3.6% in May, down by 2.2 percentage points on an annual basis and the lowest recorded since before the start of the (coronavirus) COVID-19 pandemic.

Additionally, since rising interest rates are sidelining more prospective homebuyers, landlords have a larger pool of potential tenants and thus more leverage to raise prices. The year-over-year U.S. single-family rent price growth was more than twice the May 2021 increase and more than eight times higher than the May 2020 growth.

“Increases in mortgage rates and high home prices can be headwinds to the for-sale housing market but may be continually pushing up single-family rents,” said Molly Boesel, principal economist at CoreLogic. “While the annual increase in the SFRI for May matched April’s growth rate, the gain remains at a record-high level. Furthermore, the month-over-month growth rate for rents in May was well above that month’s 19-year average.”

To gain a detailed view of single-family rental prices, CoreLogic examines four tiers of rental prices. National single-family rent growth across the four tiers, and the year-over-year changes, were as follows:

• Lower-priced (75% or less than the regional median): 14.3%, up from 4.7% in May 2021
• Lower-middle priced (75% to 100% of the regional median): 14.6%, up from 5.4% in May 2021
• Higher-middle priced (100% to 125% of the regional median): 14.7%, up from 5.8% inMay 2021
• Higher-priced (125% or more than the regional median): 13.2%, up from 8.2% in May 2021

Of the 20 metro areas shown in Table 1, Miami posted the highest year-over-year increase in single-family rents in May 2022 at 39.5%, the 10th consecutive month it has topped the nation for growth. Orlando, Florida and Las Vegas recorded the second- and third-highest gains at 24.8% and 16.7%, respectively. St. Louis (7.9%) and Honolulu (7%) posted the lowest annual rent price gains.

Differences in rent growth by property type emerged after COVID-19 took hold, as renters sought standalone properties in lower-density areas. This trend drove an uptick in rent growth for detached rentals in 2021, while the gains for attached rentals were more moderate. However, as rental inventory remains slim, the gap between attached and detached rental growth started to close last fall. In May 2022, attached rental property prices grew by 13.4% year over year, compared to the 13.6% increase for detached homes. Nevertheless, detached rental prices have grown at a significantly higher rate over the past two years (24.4%) than attached rental prices (17.6%).

The next CoreLogic Single-Family Rent Index will be released on August 16, 2022, featuring data for June 2022. For ongoing housing trends and data, visit the CoreLogic Intelligence Blog: www.corelogic.com/intelligence.

Methodology

The single-family rental market accounts for half of the rental housing stock, yet unlike the multifamily market, which has many different sources of rent data, there are minimal quality adjusted single-family rent transaction data. The CoreLogic Single-Family Rent Index (SFRI) serves to fill that void by applying a repeat pairing methodology to single-family rental listing data in the Multiple Listing Service. CoreLogic constructed the SFRI for close to 100 metropolitan areas — including 47 metros with four value tiers — and a national composite index.

The CoreLogic Single-Family Rent Index analyzes data across four price tiers: Lower-priced, which represent rentals with prices 75% or below the regional median; lower-middle, 75% to 100% of the regional median; higher-middle, 100%-125% of the regional median; and higher-priced, 125% or more above the regional median.

Median rent price data is produced monthly by CoreLogic RentalTrends. RentalTrends is built on a database of more than 11 million rental properties (over 75% of all U.S. individual owned rental properties) and covers all 50 states and 17,500 ZIP codes.

Source: CoreLogic

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About CoreLogic

CoreLogic is a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider. The company’s combined data from public, contributory and proprietary sources includes over 4.5 billion records spanning more than 50 years, providing detailed coverage of property, mortgages and other encumbrances, consumer credit, tenancy, location, hazard risk and related performance information. The markets CoreLogic serves include real estate and mortgage finance, insurance, capital markets, and the public sector. CoreLogic delivers value to clients through unique data, analytics, workflow technology, advisory and managed services. Clients rely on CoreLogic to help identify and manage growth opportunities, improve performance and mitigate risk. Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., CoreLogic operates in North America, Western Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information, please visit www.corelogic.com.

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