[caption id="attachment_5423" align="alignleft" width="142"] Molly Boesel: Rents are increasing in most cities across the U.S.[/caption]

Across the U.S., rents increased 2.7 percent in March, with the largest increase found in low-end rental prices. That’s because low rental home inventory, relative to demand, caused single-family rental prices to increase, according to Corelogic’s Single-Family Rent Index, which analyzes price changes nationally and among 20 metropolitan areas.

Year-over-year single-family rent price increases have slowed since February 2016, when they peaked at 4.2 percent, though they have increased since 2010. “Most metropolitan areas are seeing steady rent increases both month over month and year over year, with [southern metropolitan areas] showing the fastest growth,” said Molly Boesel, principal economist at CoreLogic.

Rent prices among low-end increased 3.9 percent in March 2018, a drop from a 4.4 percent increase in March 2017. Low-end properties are those with rent prices less than 75 percent of the regional median. While prices for low-end rentals are still outpacing the high-end market, a decrease in the growth rate could signal that prices are beginning to stabilize.

High-end rentals, or properties with rental prices greater than 125 percent of a region’s median rent, pulled down national rent growth in March 2018. High-end rent prices increased 2.3 percent year over year in March 2018, up from 1.8 percent compared to March of 2017.

Among the 20 metropolitan areas, Las Vegas had the highest year-over-year increase in single-family rents in March 2018 at 5.5 percent compared with March 2017, followed by Phoenix 5.4 percent, and Orlando, 5.2 percent. For the fifth consecutive month, Honolulu was the only metro with decreasing rent prices, declining 0.4 percent year over year in March 2018.

Metro areas with limited new construction, low rental vacancies and strong local economies that attract new employees tend to have stronger rent growth. Both Orlando and Phoenix experienced high year-over-year rent growth, driven by employment growth of 3.5 percent and 3.2 percent year over year respectively.

This is compared with the national employment growth average of 1.6 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of the 20 metros analyzed, Chicago experienced the lowest employment growth, which could be a factor in its low rent growth of 0.6 percent. Rent prices continue to increase in disaster-struck areas like the Houston metro area, which experienced growth of 3.4 percent year over year in March 2018. This is up from a 2.7 percent increase in February 2018 and a 1.1 percent increase in October 2017, which was the first rent increase for Houston since April 2016.