25 cities where rents are falling despite the biggest national increases in nearly two years

May marked the second time in three months that monthly rent ticked higher, following flat price growth in April. That’s not too shocking, considering that moving is more common in the spring.

The going rates for one- and two-bedroom apartments last month settled at $1,504 and $1,865, respectively. A one-bedroom setup costs the same as it did in May 2023, while a two-bedroom fixture is 0.5% more expensive than it was a year ago.

Rent is also far more costly than it was early in the pandemic. Prices for one-bedroom units are $287 more than four years ago, and their two-bedroom counterparts are close to $400 higher.

“Although the annual rates have cooled significantly from the price hikes experienced in the last few years, as the national one-bedroom rent is exactly the same as it was a year ago and the two-bedroom rate is only $9 pricier, they have not offset those large increases,” Zumper researchers wrote in the report.

An ominous omen for inflation

Faster rent growth won’t just affect tenants. Shelter costs are a key component of inflation, so an acceleration in apartment prices from the previous month could keep price growth elevated.

“This notable rise in rent coupled with the current persisting inflation suggests that there will be even more pressure put on the CPI [Consumer Price Index] in the coming months and rate cuts by the Fed may be pushed back further than previously anticipated,” Zumper CEO Anthemos Georgiades said in a statement for the report.

Those concerns may seem overstated, as the April CPI report showed an expected cooling of consumer prices. Another key inflation reading, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, declined to 0.2%, also in line with forecasts, investors learned on May 31.

However, it’s worth noting that those inflation gauges are lagging indicators while Zumper’s rent data is current, which makes the firm believe that they’ll be predictive of future readings.

25 cities where rent is down

Almost two-thirds of the top 100 metropolitan areas in the US saw rent rise on a monthly basis in May, according to Zumper. However, there were a number of locations where rent was either little changed or lower compared to the prior month.

Below are the 25 US cities where rent for a one-bedroom apartment declined from where it was in April, according to Zumper. Along with each are its month-over-month and year-over-year rent changes, average rent price, and national rent ranking among the nation’s 100 biggest markets.