“June apartment data shows continuation of April-May storyline: Strong demand, stable vacancy, improving affordability (declining rent-to-income ratios). AND YET: More cooling in rents."
Multifamily owners and investors see today an unusual situation: Abundant leasing activity but a slackening in rates. It’s not obviously a supply problem as new deliveries are slowing down. This year will see 431,000 units delivered, compared to 2024 deliveries of 577,000 units. While some, including Parsons, suggest this recent, unexpected weakness in rents might be noise or lagging data, recent research points to a different potential underlying driver.
A new study - a collaboration between industry and academics - studied the impact on rent growth from new apartment supply and from real median household income growth, specifically middle-class incomes.2 The researchers looked at changes in supply and changes in income as a horse race: Which has more influence on rents? The clear answer was income growth, which turns out to be more than twice as influential on rental rates as deliveries. This finding reframes the current paradox and can explain why rent growth has stalled in tandem with stagnant post-pandemic household incomes (chart below).
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