After getting divorced last spring, Lindsey Warren rented a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home for herself, her three children and their dogs.
She said renting was her only option because she had a low credit score. The costs “shocked” her.
She said she spent $4,500 moving in and was paying $1,868 a month for rent, insurance and pet fees.
As high inflation pushes up other living costs, Warren said she’s struggling to keep up. She works for FedEx and supports her children on her own income.
“It’s been miserably difficult,” she said.
Rising rents are making it difficult for residents of the San Antonio metro area to find affordable apartments — and rates continued to climb in July, according to the latest data.
Real estate brokerage red fin pegged the median asking rent in San Antonio at $1,476 last month, up 21.1% from a year ago.
The increase put San Antonio in 10th place among metros with the fastest rising rents year-over-year last month. Redfin ranked Cincinnati first with a 31% increase; Nashville second at 26%; and Pittsburgh third at 24%.
Realtor.com’s estimate for median July rent in San Antonio was lower at $1,418, up 13.4% from a year ago.
The national average rent for multi-family buildings rose 10.3% from a year earlier to $1,539 — the first double-digit increase in the dataset’s history — after rising $25. in August. (Dreamtime/TNS)
Dreamtime, HO/TNSMake ends meet
Warren said she stopped eating lunch at work so her children had enough food, ran out of credit cards and missed payments.
She lost her car in the divorce, so she said she borrows her boyfriend’s or his friends’ cars to get around.
“I just asked my dad today to borrow some money. I’m almost 40 – I haven’t asked my dad for money in years,” she said.
In other major Texas metros, rents last month were higher than in San Antonio.
The median asking rent was $2,491 in Austin, $1,737 in Houston and $2,218 in Dallas, according to Redfin. Realtor.com reported median rents of $1,853 in Austin, $1,450 in Houston, and $1,703 in Dallas.
Redfin said year-over-year rent peaks in each of those metros have topped San Antonio; Realtor.com said the increases were higher in Dallas and Austin, but lower in Houston.
In the United States, prices hit a new high in July, but the rental market is showing signs of slowing down.
The national median asking rent was $2,032 last month, a 14% year-over-year increase and the smallest annual increase since November, according to Redfin.
“Big rent hikes may finally be coming to an end as landlords adjust to shrinking budgets for tenants who are strained by the rising cost of groceries, gas and other regular expenses. “, Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather said in a statement.
“Yet rents are rising faster than headline inflation, which has started to subside,” he added. “We expect rent growth to continue to slow, but markets with strong job growth and limited new housing construction, such as New York and Seattle, will likely continue to see large rent increases. .”
Growing demand and the limited supply of available apartments have driven up rental prices.
Realtor.com said the median posted rent in the 50 largest U.S. metro areas was $1,879 in July, up 12.3% year-over-year. It was the lowest annual rate since August 2021 and just $3 higher than June 2022.
“This sets a new record for national rent, breaking the record for the 17th consecutive month, but it also signals a significant slowdown in rent growth,” Realtor.com noted in its report.
“Despite encouraging indicators, the challenges of record rent, 12.3% higher than last year, inflation of 8.5% and wage growth of only 5.2% are very real for tenants,” the report continues. “Relief in the form of a moderation in rental charges is coming, but it hasn’t arrived yet.”
Growing demand and the limited supply of available apartments have driven up rental prices.
As more companies have started offering remote work options during the coronavirus pandemic, employees have moved to cheaper cities or sought more space.
Rising house prices and higher interest rates relative to the start of the pandemic kept potential buyers out of the market, so they continued to rent.
The median sale price in July was $341,600, an increase of 15.4% over the previous year, according to the San Antonio Board of Realtors.
Rising construction and labor costs, supply chain delays and rising interest rates have also made it more expensive to build and renovate apartments. Landlords pass these costs on to tenants.
Sixty percent of respondents to a July survey told Realtor.com’s Avail that rising housing costs were crushing their wallets, and 57 percent said their rent had gone up since moving into their current home.
For its numbers, Redfin said it assessed RentPath’s rental prices in the 50 largest US metros and used data from more than 20,000 apartment buildings. Its estimates refer to the median cost of apartments available for rent in July.
Realtor.com used data from the properties offered for rent on its website.