Nationwide, Single-Family Rental Growth in U.S. Falls Flat in November

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According to CoreLogic's latest Single-Family Rent Index (SFRI), which analyzes single-family rent price changes nationally and among 20 U.S. metropolitan areas, a national rent increase of 3% year over year in November 2019, unchanged annually.

Low rental home inventory, relative to demand, fuels the growth of single-family rent prices. The SFRI shows single-family rent prices have climbed between 2010 and 2019. However, overall year-over-year rent price increases have slowed since February 2016, when they peaked at 4.2%, and have stabilized at around 3% since early 2019.

November marked the 67th consecutive month in which low-end rentals propped up national rent growth. Rent prices among this tier, defined as properties with rent prices less than 75% of the regional median, increased 3.6% year over year in November 2019, down from a gain of 3.8% in November 2018. Meanwhile, high-end rentals, defined as properties with rent prices greater than 125% of a region's median rent, increased 2.7% in November 2019, unchanged from November 2018.

Among the 20 metro areas shown in Table 1, and for the 12th consecutive month, Phoenix had the highest year-over-year increase in single-family rents in November 2019 at 6.9% (compared to November 2018). Tucson, Arizona experienced the second-highest rent price growth in November 2019 with gains of 5.7%, followed closely by Seattle at 5.4%. Miami experienced the lowest rent increases out of all analyzed metros at 0.7%.

Metro areas with limited new construction, low rental vacancies and strong local economies that attract new employees tend to have stronger rent growth. Phoenix and Seattle experienced high year-over-year rent growth in November, driven by the annual employment growth of 2.6% and 2.9%, respectively. This is compared with the national employment growth average of 1.5%, according to data from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.