Where are rent prices still sky-high despite the recent slowdown in rent hikes?
With rent increases beginning to stabilize due to a surge in newly available apartments, Lawn Love ranked 2024’s Most Expensive Metro Areas for Renters.
We compared 196 of the biggest U.S. metros based on three categories. We looked at average rent prices, year-over-year rent changes, and the share of renters spending over 30% of their income on rent and utilities, among 9 total metrics.
Compare options with help from our ranking below. To learn how we ranked the cities, see our methodology.
In this article
- Metro rankings + infographic
- Top 5 close up
- Key insights
- Expert take
- Behind the ranking
- Final thoughts
Metro rankings + infographic
See how each metro area fared in our ranking:
1st = Most Expensive/Least Affordable
Note: For presentation purposes, not all ties may be displayed for some metrics above.
Top 5 close up
Check out the slideshow below for highlights and lowlights on each of our top five metros.
1st = Most Expensive/Least Affordable
Key insights
Economic powerhouses like Miami, New York, and Los Angeles landed at the top of the rankings with some of the highest rent prices. These metros share high living costs and significant portions of cost-burdened renters. These cities are also vulnerable to market dynamics such as Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) that can drive up rental prices by flipping foreclosed homes into high-priced rentals.
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL, (No. 1) stands out with the highest rental costs for one- and two-bedroom rentals, and a significant 62.6% of renters are cost-burdened, spending nearly 32% of their income on rent. In stark contrast, Rock Springs, WY, (No. 196) offers the lowest one-bedroom rental prices, while Sioux Falls, SD, (No. 195) boasts the lowest two-bedroom rental prices and one of the lowest percentages of cost-burdened renters.
With fewer than 500,000 residents, smaller metros like Norwich, CT, (No. 69), Lansing, MI, (No. 101), Sierra Vista, AZ, (No. 83), and Greenville, NC, (No. 41) have seen significant increases in rent prices over the past year, experiencing hikes of over 7%.
North and South Carolina became popular moving destinations in 2023, with Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach, SC-NC, (No. 66) taking the crown for the second year in a row. Despite this influx, metros like Asheville, NC, (No. 36), Raleigh-Cary, NC, (No. 179), Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC, (No. 136), and Greenville-Anderson, SC, (No. 122) have experienced modest changes in rent prices, with Myrtle Beach, SC, experiencing a nearly 3.5% decrease in rent prices since last year.
Dive into more details below.
Expert take
Are you planning to move or wondering why your rent is increasing so much? We reached out to some real estate experts to provide insight on the current housing crisis and how it’s impacting your ability to find affordable rentals.
- How are current rent increases sustainable in our current economy?
- What are three things renters can do to get the best deal when looking for a new apartment?
- What can local city and state governments do to alleviate the rent crisis and expand affordable housing in their cities?
- Is rent control good or bad for renters? Please explain.
- What factors are contributing the most to the rent crisis? When, if at all, do you expect rent prices to return to normal (affordable) levels again?
- What innovative rental housing trends have you observed recently and where?
- What are your three best tips for families who are currently navigating the rental market?
How are current rent increases sustainable in our current economy?
Surprisingly, to some observers, household formations (increasing demand) stayed strong during COVID. The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard (JCHS) has data on this in their recent annual update.
Also, moratoria on evictions and government stimulus funds kept many people in their apartments, so turnover of units was reduced. And then we have many years of underproducing housing relative to household growth. Data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve supports this conclusion.
What are three things renters can do to get the best deal when looking for a new apartment?
1. Research the market, which is relatively easy to do on the internet these days via sites like Zillow, Redfin, Apartments.com, and many others.
2. Work to improve their credit score.
3. Sign up for a longer-term lease if they can. This usually results in a lower monthly rent when a landlord can count on a tenant staying around.
What can local city and state governments do to alleviate the rent crisis and expand affordable housing in their cities?
Encourage production of housing of all kinds. Reduce regulatory obstacles, such as zoning, that limits the supply of land for apartments. Expedite environmental and other regulatory review of applications for new apartment development.
Is rent control good or bad for renters? Please explain.
Overall, most rent control — especially the most stringent versions — discourage additions to supply and investment in maintaining existing apartment supply.
It can have short-run benefits, but long run it tends to make housing less available and ultimately more expensive when supply is reduced relative to demand.
The other thing is that the folks who benefit from rent regulation are typically not the folks who have the lowest incomes.
What factors are contributing the most to the rent crisis? When, if at all, do you expect rent prices to return to normal (affordable) levels again?
Long-term failure to produce enough housing to meet the growth in households.
It’s unclear when the market will stabilize. It will take years of expanding supply and regulatory reform to encourage more housing development.
How are current rent increases sustainable in our current economy?
The rent increases that are being experienced across the country are the result of a few things that make up a perfect storm. Most are related to disruptions that grew out of COVID.
1. There were fewer housing starts during COVID, so the demand for units was not being met by supply.
2. Housing construction, maintenance, and related costs increased due to supply-chain disruptions and inflation in the economy.
3. Homeownership became more expensive (which pushed more people into the rental market) first because institutional investors were buying up homes and driving prices up and later because interest rates increased the cost of homeownership.
Now that COVID is ending, there is added pressure from landlords who want to raise rents since eviction moratoriums are over.
Moving forward, the main challenge will be for local areas to find ways to add rental units to the inventory, especially ones that are affordable. Without bringing new units on line, there will be continued pressure to increase rents.
What are three things renters can do to get the best deal when looking for a new apartment?
1. Renters should be willing to search for housing in a larger geographic area. For instance, if rents are too expensive in core cities or gentrifying areas, the willingness to relocate to surrounding communities may help renters find more affordable units.
2. Renters may also be able to negotiate lower rents, in the long term if they sign leases for longer terms. Basically, the longer they can lock in their rents, the more protection they receive from rent increases in the future.
3. If homeownership is an option (or goal) down the road, renters should look for the most affordable unit possible so they can save for a down payment faster. For those who plan to purchase a home in the future, mortgage costs (especially for comparable square footage) tend to be lower than renting.
What can local city and state governments do to alleviate the rent crisis and expand affordable housing in their cities?
Local and state governments can create incentives for developers to increase the inventory of affordable housing. That can be done with tax incentives, land-use reform, and other policies that encourage development, as well as by waiving things like deed and title fees.
Local and state governments can also lobby the federal government to expand things like the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) program and the housing choice voucher (HCV) program, in order to both increase the supply of housing and availability of subsidies for renters.
If the goal is to make homeownership more attainable, local and state government can also reduce property tax burden for primary residence with things like homestead tax exemptions and mortgage interest deductions.
Is rent control good or bad for renters? Please explain.
Rent control is generally good for renters. Today, places that have rent control usually place limits on rent increases, calibrating them to the cost of living. So, it protects renters from rent gauging.
Landlords generally oppose rent control, because it sets limits on how much they can profit. But, a tool like rent control is very beneficial in a hyper-inflated rental market like we see today.
What factors are contributing the most to the rent crisis? When, if at all, do you expect rent prices to return to normal (affordable) levels again?
My first answer gets at the first part of this question. In terms of returning to normal (affordable) levels again, it is unlikely that there will be a reduction in rents down the road.
What will make rents more affordable in the future will be if the rate of increases slows down to a pace that is in line with the cost of living and if household incomes increase in a relative sense to catch up with current rent levels.
State and local governments can do some things to ease pressures on rent increases. For lower-income households, the main source of rental assistance is the HCV program. It is underfunded now, but in the future, increasing subsidies for low-income renters and expanding that program would be an important step toward making housing more affordable.
What innovative rental housing trends have you observed recently and where?
There have been some small-scale efforts to create community land trusts to reduce the cost of housing. Also, some municipalities have used density bonuses and affordable housing ordinances to incentivize the construction of affordable housing.
What are your three best tips for families who are currently navigating the rental market?
1. Look for housing in a number of areas where you live. If you live in a part of a city or metropolitan area where rents are increasing and becoming unaffordable, you might find more affordable housing in a neighboring community.
2. If you are income-qualified, get on a waiting list for housing assistance. That will put you closer to the front of the line if your local housing agency gets additional funding.
3. If you find a unit, try to negotiate with the landlord for the best deal possible. You might be able to get a lower rent for a longer lease term or some other add-ons.
How are current rent increases sustainable in our current economy?
They really aren’t. Rent cannot increase past the renters’ ability to pay.
What are three things renters can do to get the best deal when looking for a new apartment?
1. Research the market.
2. Scour the ads.
3. Utilize all your connections, including friends, families, and workmates to see if they know of any vacancies coming up.
What can local city and state governments do to alleviate the rent crisis and expand affordable housing in their cities?
In the short term, not much, but in the longer term, they can expand the housing supply by having less restrictive land-use regulations. They can allow higher densities and more rental units to be built. They can use their leverage in planning decisions to promote more modest-income housing.
Is rent control good or bad for renters? Please explain.
It’s a mixed bag. [Rent control] tends to keep rents lower but reduces the supply of rental housing. And it tends to favor those already in rent-controlled housing who are not always the poorest.
Rather than controlling rents, it’s probably more effective to increase the supply of modest-income rental housing.
What factors are contributing the most to the rent crisis? When, if at all, do you expect rent prices to return to normal (affordable) levels again?
Restrictions on the increasing the supply of modest-priced rental housing.
Rents may remain high as a percentage of income for some time so that people can “afford” housing but have less disposable income. In the long term, the rent will be set by supply but perhaps at a higher price, so many may see a reduction in their disposable income.
What innovative rental housing trends have you observed recently and where?
Local governments directly and indirectly — through a mix of land-use policy and fiscal incentives — can increase the supply of modest-income housing.
What are your three best tips for families who are currently navigating the rental market?
1. Utilize all your social connections to help find a place.
2. See if you can access opportunities before they come onto the market.
3. Directly approach owners of rental units that you are interested in rather than waiting to apply for posted vacancies.
How are current rent increases sustainable in our current economy?
It is all a matter of demand and supply. As long as rental supply remains lower than demand growth, then there is no economic reason why rents could not continue growing. The rental market is, of course, impossible to disconnect from the ownership market.
The affordability crisis in the ownership market has pushed more and more people to rent, further increasing the demand for rental units. Policies that attempt to address this by controlling rent could further reduce rental supplying the future.
Another issue is, of course, the unequal access to affordable rental units. In many cases, as I have highlighted in a couple of research pieces, even the access to these rent-regulated units is not straightforward and unequally allocated.
What are three things renters can do to get the best deal when looking for a new apartment?
- First of all, keep in mind that choosing where you live is associated with many other expenses. Getting a cheaper apartment that is farther away from where you work and requires you to drive every day and pay to park could seem like a good deal from just looking at the rent, but not when looking at the overall involved expenses.A holistic view of the related expenses and access to the neighborhood services will definitely determine how much of a good deal an apartment is for a specific household.
- Second of all, in a situation where rents are increasing, scoring a long-term lease, even at slightly higher rates, could result in savings in the long run. Getting familiar with the rest of the session policies and whether the unit you are looking at gets that benefit is also very useful in this dimension.
- Third of all, try to educate yourself about access to policies that could benefit you. There are several policies, like housing vouchers, that could help you even if your income is not necessarily too low, but you live in a very expensive area.
What can local city and state governments do to alleviate the rent crisis and expand affordable housing in their cities?
There is a long-run and a short-run solution. In the short-run, rate regulation and rental vouchers kind of alleviate the problem. In the long run, however, those could reduce the overall supply of rental housing, especially regulation, further increasing the rent.
Governments should aim at increasing the supply of all housing overall, as well as relaxing, after taking the necessary precautions, the regulations that prevent the transition of buildings from different uses. After the 2020 pandemic, in some areas, the demand for commercial square feet was reduced, especially office space. The careful transition of some of these buildings to residential could ease the rental affordability crisis.
Is rent control good or bad for renters? Please explain.
As mentioned above, rent control can definitely provide protection in the short run to current renters and prevent displacement. However, it could backfire in the long run.
As I mentioned, it reduces the incentives to build more rental housing. It also has the issue of unfair allocation if the people that we want to benefit the most, for example, low-income households, end up getting excluded from accessing these units.
What factors are contributing the most to the rent crisis? When, if at all, do you expect rent prices to return to normal (affordable) levels again?
There are many factors that are involved. Foreign demand in an increasingly globalized world could, for example, increase pressure on local rental prices. However, I think the slow supply of new units is the main culprit.
Why do we have a slow supply? I would say that strict regulations have had an important effect, as well as local movements of people who want to protect their home values and undertake political action to prevent new development. This is particularly acute in the US, where zoning regulations and project development approval are so decentralized.
Finally, since the great recession, there has been an increasing concentration in housing markets. Fewer and fewer developers have larger and larger market shares in the main cities in the country. The lack of competition has also been shown in some of my projects to be a cause for a reduction in supply and growth in prices.
I honestly do not see any current trends suggesting that any of these issues are being resolved, so I do not expect the affordability crisis to be resolved in the short run. Of course, the possibility of a recession could reduce people’s purchasing power, and reduce prices. However, lower prices when income is lower may result in similar levels of lack of affordability.
What innovative rental housing trends have you observed recently, and where?
Micro houses is an interesting one. Also, a growing trend of friends getting together to buy homes without having formed a household yet, at least in the traditional sense, is another one.
Then, we have the work-from-home trend that has allowed people to still benefit from having jobs in high-paying productive cities but moving their home locations to smaller, cheaper cities. All of these trends adapt to the impact of higher rents, but they’re not fully solving it.
What are your three best tips for families who are currently navigating the rental market?
- Location is one of the most important decisions you can make for your family finances. Look at it holistically. As I mentioned before, lower rents could result in more overall expenses if they are associated with an apartment that gives you very little access to services.
- Second, remember you will be substituting internal apartment services for external services in some cases. In this sense, you may not be able to have a garden in an apartment, but its location could give you access to a public park that could give you, at least partially, some of the services. Again do not think about the unit and its location as separate decisions from other aspects of your life.
- Third, do not rule out renting as a useful option for your family, especially if it allows you more flexibility and some buffer until the time comes when home prices go down again.
Behind the ranking
First, we determined the factors (metrics) that are most relevant to rank the Most Expensive Metro Areas for Renters. We then assigned a weight to each factor based on its importance and grouped those factors into three categories: Rent Prices, Rent Affordability, and Cost Inflators. The categories, factors, and their weights are listed in the table below.
For each of the 198 biggest U.S. metros, we then gathered data on each factor from the sources listed below the table. We eliminated 2 metros lacking sufficient data in a single category, resulting in a final sample size of 196 metros.
Finally, we calculated scores (out of 100 points) for each metro to determine its rank in each factor, each category, and overall. A metro’s Overall Score is the average of its scores across all factors and categories. The highest Overall Score ranked “Worst/Most Expensive” (No. 1) and the lowest “Best/Least Expensive” (No. 196).
Notes:
- The “Worst” among individual factors may not be No. 196 due to ties.
- The 2 metros removed from our ranking due to insufficient data include Midland, TX, and Odessa, TX.
- “Cost-Burdened Households” include those “spending more than 30% on housing costs, including rent or mortgage payments, utilities, and other fees,” according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Sources
Apartment List, Attom, Forbes, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and U.S. Census Bureau
Final thoughts
Now more than ever, renters are coming from multiple age groups. Baby boomers are tired of keeping up with large houses and more millennials and Gen Zers enter the rental market each year. A common preference among these groups is the desire for outdoor space, including small gardens, patios, or yards.
Official statistics indicate that rising rent prices have been a significant factor contributing to inflation over the past year. However, lease costs are down compared to last year, and over 100 of the largest U.S. metros have seen drops, including Austin, TX, and Atlanta, GA.
Home prices have hit record highs, and in America’s largest cities, renting is currently cheaper than owning. Elevated mortagage rates, lower inventories, and reduced construction on new builds across the country have pushed potential buyers towards renting. However, there's some good news: mortgage interest rates have fallen slightly since May.
A recent survey found that 84% of baby boomers who rent prefer it over owning and 90% value the freedom from property (and lawn) maintenance that renting provides.
Lower costs of living and affordable housing continue to drive moving trends in 2024. Remote workers, in particular, are taking advantage of more affordable options.
As rent prices continue to decline in many major metros, you now have the opportunity to start saving for a home with a spacious yard, fit for an outdoor grilling party.
Media resources
Quotes from Lawn Love Editor-in-Chief Sharon Sullivan:
- Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV, (No. 29) has experienced the highest increase in foreclosure rates over the past year, rising by more than 110%. Factors contributing to this spike include a cooling housing market and higher interest rates.
- 112 metros saw average overall rent prices decrease between May 2023 to May 2024. The average rent price in Punta Gorda, FL, (No. 67), dropped by over 12%, while costs in Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL, (No. 38), decreased by almost 10%, despite being popular destinations.
- The bottom 25 showcases some large metros like St. Louis, MO-IL, (No. 172), Raleigh-Cary, NC, (No. 179), and Oklahoma City, OK, (No. 175), making them more affordable places to rent while offering a wealth of big city amenities. Renters in these areas can expect to spend around 15% of their income on rent and utilities.
- All of Louisiana’s metros in the ranking, including New Orleans-Metairie, LA, (No. 40), Baton Rouge, LA, (No. 115), and Lafayette, LA, (No. 111), had the highest renters insurance premiums as a percentage of annual income. This is largely due to the high risk of natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, and severe storms in the region.
- High-resolution image of infographic
- High-resolution images of cities
- 2023’s Most Expensive Metro Areas for Renters ranking results
- 2022’s Most Expensive Metro Areas for Renters ranking results
Main Photo Credit: iStock (with text overlay)