How much has rent increased since the pandemic?

Rental prices continue to rise in the United States, placing immense stress on tenants who are priced out of neighborhoods and, in some cases, cities entirely. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, rent for primary residences in the United States has grown 22.25 percent since March 2020. There are many reasons prices in the housing sector have grown so quickly. In part, the increase has to do with monetary policy and the decision of the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates, which has led to an increase in the rates tacked onto mortgages.

Before the Fed began to hike rates, the housing sector had been upended by the pandemic and the impact of telework taking hold in many professional sectors. While some areas have been hit harder than others, much of the country has experienced an increase as remote work created more flexibility in where people could live. In some cases, this increased freedom for teleworkers meant locals could not compete with newcomers, making them priced out of their cities and towns. In 2022, 54 percent of all homes in Bozeman were owner-occupied; now, that figure is 57 percent, meaning that without new construction, the number of rental units has fallen, helping to push up prices.

The situation in major cities

In major cities, the pandemic saw a temporary exodus of workers hoping to use their increased flexibility to get closer to nature. Bozeman was one of these locations that saw a massive wave of new residents. However, as some companies required workers to return to the office, demand for apartments in major cities began to rise again, and in many places, they haven’t stopped. For example, in San Fransisco, rental prices fell following the initial months of the pandemic after having grown 3.86 percent from March 2019 to March 2020. In New York City and the surrounding area, a similar story to that of the Bay Area is playing out. Rental prices stagnated at the beginning of the pandemic but have shot up 12 percent since early 2022. Seattle residents have been battered by rent increases, with prices up 22 percent since 2020 and 16 percent since March 2022. From 2020 to 2022, Seattle saw homelessness, as calculated through a point-in-time survey, increase by thirteen percent, with 13,368 persons experiencing homelessness counted. The data from Seattle shows that there are real consequences when affordable housing is not available.