In a new study, Apartment List found seven of the 25 biggest U.S. cities had median rental rate decreases year-over-year.
Portland and Pittsburgh had the biggest drops, between 2.2 and 1.1 percent, but the three cities tied for third at 0.9 percent are noteworthy: Baltimore, Chicago, and ... Seattle? Apartment List housing economist Chris Salviati says that the price drops in Portland and Seattle are largely due to the influx of new apartments coming online. While Seattle is seeing record-high levels of new apartments hitting the market, they are typically high-end luxury apartments, CNBC reports. Salviati does not foresee major rental cost declines next year.
Although rental rates went up nationwide, the increase was actually fairly modest at about 1.5 percent, according to a new report from rental site Apartment List. That's down from a high of 3.6 percent in 2015, the report found. The increase was so minimal that it actually lagged the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported wage growth (2.7 percent) and overall inflation (2.5 percent). Apartment management software and data provider RealPage estimated in March that year-over-year growth was down to 2.3 percent, falling from a 2015 rate of 4.7 percent.
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