By Jonathan Jones

This is the most recent release of our Cities With the Biggest Change in Rent Prices study.

To see data from previous years, please visit the Full Results section below.

In recent months, the dour outlook on the U.S. economy has begun to shift. Economic growth, consumer spending, and employment rates have remained strong despite widespread expectations of a recession in 2023. The Federal Reserve has begun to signal that interest rate cuts are on the horizon in 2024. And perhaps most importantly in consumers’ minds, the pace of inflation has been falling back to historically normal levels after reaching a peak in mid-2022.

One area where many Americans continue to struggle, however, is the cost of housing. Increased rents have been one of the persistent factors underlying the price increases of the last two years, as a major component in several common measures of inflation. With high home prices and mortgage interest rates pricing many would-be buyers out of the residential real estate market, rentals have been highly competitive.

Underlying these trends is a long-term shortage of housing stock in the United States. Many builders were hard-hit by the Great Recession, and as a result, the U.S. dramatically underbuilt its housing stock throughout the 2010s. Renters are feeling the consequences: rental vacancy rates are at their lowest level on record. In short, this means that more renters are competing for fewer available units.

The long-term supply challenges around housing stock came to a head during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Government stimulus and renter protection programs helped keep rents low during the early months of the pandemic, but rent growth began to spike in early 2021. According to data from Zillow’s Observed Rent Index, year-over-year rent growth exploded from just under 2% in February 2021 to over 16% in February 2022. The rate of growth fell back to pre-pandemic levels earlier in 2023, but over the last few months of the year, the year-to-year change in rents began to tick up yet again. And while rates of growth have slowed, overall price growth has continued.

Large Metros With the Biggest Change in Rent Prices