(NewsNation) — In a major milestone, year-over-year rent growth fell to zero this month, according to Apartment List’s July national rent report.
The fact that, on average, people are renting apartments for the same price as they were one year ago “marks a major shift from the recent past, when annual rent growth topped out at nearly 18 percent nationally and over 40 percent in a handful of popular cities,” the rental market report said.
It’s important to note that this doesn’t necesarily mean rents aren’t rising. On a month-over-month basis rents are slowly ticking up, according to Apartment List.
“Sluggish demand and increasing supply” have influenced slow rent growth in 2023, according to the report. The national rent index increased by 0.4 percent in June, but the monthly measurement of rent is gradually cooling at a time of year when it’s normally peaking.
The national rent index wasn’t the only report to hit a milestone in July. Apartment List’s vacancy index stands at 7.2 percent, which matches the peak vacancy rate measured at the height of COVID-19.
“With a record number of multi-family apartment units currently under construction, this vacancy rate will remain elevated … for the first time since the early stages of the pandemic and put pressure on property owners to find tenants, rather than the other way around,” the report said.