Single family homes for rent are getting more expensive. Here’s where prices are going up

As uncertainty looms in the housing market, with consecutive Fed interest rate hikes, elevated mortgage rates and still-high home prices, potential home buyers are gravitating toward SFRs.

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

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As the Federal Reserve continues to raise rates, rental prices are still not expected to cool despite the increased number of listings, Lwowski says.

For the overall rental market, including apartments and multi-family rentals, the steadily increasing vacancy rates, new-construction inventory and a tepid housing market are driving down prices.

Largest annual increase in median monthly single-family rental listing price

The monthly median rental price in the Albany, New York, area rose by 30%, from $1,519 to $1,974 from the end of the first quarter of 2022 to the same period this year. Except for the Naples, Florida, metro area where median monthly rents rose 24%, from $4,637 to $5,756, the strongest price growths indicate that renters are increasingly interested in inexpensive, growing metro area

HOWARD ZELIN