April is the third consecutive month of falling U.S. national one-bedroom apartment rent prices, according to ABODO’s National Apartment Report: U.S. Rent Trends April 2018. U.S. national apartment rent prices were down 1.91 percent since the start of the year, to $1,026.
Despite the overall downward trend in one-bedroom rent prices, some cities saw significant rent jumps. Dayton, Ohio, leads the country’s rent rises, with one-bedroom rents there up nearly 15 percent, from $608 to $697.
Little Rock, Ark., also had a double-digit increase of 11.1 percent, taking rents from $641 at the beginning of March to $712 going into April. Following Little Rock, the increases are a bit milder. One-bedroom apartments in Columbus, Ohio, are up 7.7 percent, while Scottsdale, Ariz., saw one-bedroom rents jump 5.7 percent.
Other markets posting some of the highest rent hikes in the country included Ann Arbor, Mich., apartments (3 percent); Tempe, Ariz., (3.1 percent); Las Vegas, (4.9 percent); Indianapolis, Ind., (2.8 percent); and two Texas cities — Houston (5.4 percent) and Fort Worth (5.4 percent).
However, rents for two-bedroom apartments finally slowed down after several months of rent hikes. Going into April, the national median two-bedroom rent was down 0.56 percent since January, to $1,247, according to ABODO.
Houston saw the largest two-bedroom rent increase of 8.1 percent, and two other Texas cities also made the list: Lubbock (2.8 percent) and Fort Worth (2.6 percent). California also contributed three cities to the top 10 for rent rises: Los Angeles (4.5 percent), Berkeley (3.2 percent) and Long Beach (3 percent).
The largest rent decrease was only slightly smaller than the largest increase: 7.8 percent, in Boulder, Colo., which had the second-largest two-bedroom rent decrease last month, of 5.8 percent, according to ABODO.
Although the rental market was already showing signs of heating up last April, there is still time for prices to rise during the summer, predicts ABODO.
