Monthly rental payments for both single-family homes and multifamily apartments are now rising at the fastest pace in nearly a year, according to Zillow.
The median monthly rent in February came in at $1,472, an increase of 2.4 percent compared with February 2018. For the typical renter, this means about $400 more a year.
Of course all real estate is local, with rents now significantly higher than a year ago in Orlando, Florida (+7.0 percent), Phoenix (+6.8 percent), Riverside, California (+6.2 percent), Tampa, Florida (+5.5 percent) and Pittsburgh (+4.9 percent). Rents in New York City have seen no effect from Amazon’s decision not to build a new headquarters there. Rents in Northern Virginia, where Amazon is still on track to hire thousands of employees, are expected to rise, as home sales and prices are already getting a boost from investors.
The priciest major metro in the country remains San Jose, Calif., at $3,547 in February, up 1.4 percent from a year earlier. It’s followed by San Francisco at $3,448 a month (up 1.6 percent), Los Angeles at $2,835 a month (up 3.5 percent), San Diego at $2,643 a month (up 4.2 percent) and New York at $2,419 (up 1.2 percent).