Your neighbourhood's median rent is probably wrong
Listing medians measure what is available, not what people pay. In a tight market those diverge badly.
The rent number in most coverage comes from listing data — what is currently advertised. It is the easiest number to get and one of the least representative.
The selection problem
Listings are, by definition, units nobody lives in. In a tight market the units that turn over are disproportionately those a landlord has renovated or repriced upward. Stable, below-market tenancies never appear.
The result is a median tracking the top of the market’s churn rather than the middle of the market’s reality.
Better numbers
Effective rent, which nets out concessions. Two months free on a twelve-month lease is roughly a 17% discount that never shows in the headline.
Renewal rent — what sitting tenants are being asked. Landlords push renewals less aggressively than new leases, and the gap between the two is the most informative single number in a local market.
Rent-to-income at tract level, slower to publish and measuring the thing anyone cares about.
How the gap behaves
New-lease and renewal rents track closely in a loose market and diverge in a tight one. A widening spread signals turnover is about to fall, because tenants facing a large jump simply stay.
Practically
Find the concession rate first. It moves before anything else and it is the number landlords are least eager to publish.
General information, not personalised financial advice.
Reported at Realtor.com News and HousingWire; analysis ours.
Newsletter
US housing, in plain numbers
Get The Listing in your inbox. No spam, and one click to leave.
Weekly, on Sundays · Unsubscribe any time. We never sell or rent your address; read the privacy policy.