Brief excerpt:
Tracking rents is important for understanding the dynamics of the housing market. For example, the sharp increase in rents helped me deduce that there was a surge in household formation in 2021 (See from September 2021: Household Formation Drives Housing Demand). Now that household formation has slowed, and multi-family completions have increased, rents are under pressure.
From ApartmentList.com: Apartment List National Rent Report
Rents are up 0.5% month-over-month, down 0.8% year-over-year
Rent growth follows a seasonal pattern – rent increases generally take place during the spring and summer, whereas the fall and winter usually see a modest price dip. We are currently transitioning into the busy season, with the national median rent increasing for the third straight month, following six consecutive monthly declines from August 2023 to January 2024. However, the pace of that positive rent growth slowed slightly this month, with rents up 0.5 percent month-over-month in April, after increasing by 0.6 percent in March.
There is much more in the article.