Rents reach super-high levels across United States
ATLANTA
In the 50 largest U.S. metro areas, median rent rose an astounding 19.3 percent from December 2020 to December 2021, according to a Realtor.com analysis of properties with two or fewer bedrooms.
Rents have exploded across the country, causing many to dig deep into their savings, downsize to subpar units or fall behind on payments and risk eviction now that a federal moratorium has ended.
And nowhere was the jump bigger than in the Miami metro area, where the median rent exploded to $2,850, 49.8 percent higher than the previous year, The Associated Press reported on Feb. 20.
Other cities across Florida - Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville - and the Sun Belt destinations of San Diego, Las Vegas, Austin, Texas, and Memphis, Tennessee, all saw spikes of more than 25 percent during that time period.
Rising rents are an increasing driver of high inflation that has become one of the nation’s top economic problems. Labor Department data, which covers existing rents as well as new listings, shows much smaller increases, but these are also picking up. Rental costs rose 0.5 percent in January from December, the Labor Department said last week. That may seem small, but it was the biggest increase in 20 years, and will likely accelerate.
Economists worry about the impact of rent increases on inflation because the big jumps in new leases feed into the U.S. consumer price index, which is used to measure inflation. Inflation jumped 7.5 percent in January from a year earlier, the biggest increase in four decades.
