Apartment rents were up in August from a year earlier in all the top 30 U.S. metro areas, the first time that’s happened since the start of the pandemic, according to a new report by Yardi, Bloomberg News reported. The national average rent in multi-family buildings rose 10.3% from a year earlier to $1,539 — the first double-digit rise in the dataset’s history — after a $25 increase in August, the real-estate firm said. Over the past 10 years, the average pace of growth has been 2%. This year’s surge in housing costs has added a new dimension to the debate over how long pandemic inflation will last, with signs that it’s picking up speed at a time other COVID-driven price spikes — like the one in used cars — may be topping out. Earlier in the crisis, the onset of work-from-home drove a flight from big cities like New York and San Francisco, pushing costs down. Rents in those two metro areas remain short of pre-pandemic levels, even though they’re now rising again on an annual basis. The spread of the delta variant of COVID-19, pushing back return-to-office-dates at some companies, may be one drag. Single-family homes that were built-to-rent saw even bigger increases, with prices up 13.9% from a year earlier. Those gains have triggered a surge in interest among institutional investors in housing as an asset class. Yardi said that’s likely to continue because “as Millennials reach home-buying age, the price of single-family homes continues to be out of reach for many.”
