The national median rental price jumped 19.8% in January from a year ago, marking the eighth straight month of double-digit increases, according to a report from Realtor.com. The national median rent was $1,789 last month.
“US rental markets are more than making up for lost time,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com. Rents have now gone up 21% from January 2020, prior to the onset of the pandemic.
January’s biggest rent jump was in the Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach areas of Florida where the median rent was $2,895 a month in January, up 52.4% from last year. Miami is now the fifth most expensive place to rent in the country after several cities in California: San Jose, San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The report found that the monthly cost of buying a starter home was more affordable than renting a similar-sized unit in more than half of the 50 biggest US cities.
While many people looking for an affordable place to live feel stuck between a rock and a hard place as both rent and homebuying costs are rising, a number of factors could tip the affordability scale in favor of people buying a home for the first time this year, Hale said.
Rents are forecast to outpace for-sale listing price growth in 2022 and are already accelerating across all sizes of rentals. Additionally, she said, survey data shows the majority of landlords plan to further raise the rents they ask this year.
Where it’s better to buy
Looking at national median home prices and rents, the monthly cost of renting is still slightly cheaper than owning a starter home, the report found.
But in 26 of the 50 biggest cities, the monthly cost of buying a starter home was an average of 20.6% — or $323 — less than renting one in January, according to Realtor.com.
Buying was most advantageous in Birmingham, Alabama, where the cost of buying a starter home was 44.3% less than the cost of renting in January. It was followed by Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis.
Two cities in…
Source : cnn
