Image from hownowidesign via Flickr
After calculating the average rents for the fourth quarter of 2011, we noticed a slight increase of 1.25% since the fourth quarter of 2010. We use year to year statistics to eliminate seasonality, since apartment prices seem to follow a trend throughout the year. For analyzing cities and states, we also use only the changes since the fourth quarter of 2010 to the fourth quarter of 2011.
To gather the data, we analyze our database of available apartments from all over the country and group them into whatever geographical boundaries we want to look at. So for the nation we just draw out all available apartments we had at the time and see how the averages have changed. When looking at a state basis, we look at all available apartments that were located in that state. The key is we only use available apartments, so you are getting what the price was of apartments in your area that you could have attempted to rent. We use this information to show when the best times were to rent and then to gauge what the overall market is doing in your area.
When looking at specific regions of the USA, it seems as though the west coast has had the best market for renters. As you can see, for the most part those states have actually decreased in rent. The graph below indicates which states have increased or decreased in rent. If a state is in green then the rent has decreased. Orange means an increase of less than 5%, while a red state means an increase of greater than 5%.
The states with the largest decrease in rent can be seen below:
The states with the largest increase in rent can be seen here:
When looking at rents on a city basis, the top 10 largest metros all had increases in rent. However, the two largest cities, New York City and Los Angeles, has the two lowest increases. The top ten metros are listed below with the lowest increases listed first:
As I said before, we use our inventory of only available apartments for each city and state’s data, so this would be for apartments you could actually rent. If you live in a city or state where rents have been going up, then jump on our site and make sure you grab the cheap ones while they’re still available! We want to use our data to help you make the most educated decision. If you want to know about rental trends specific to your city, just let us know.
