Landlords begin to see slower increases in rent growth in big cities as more apartments come onto the market
By Laura Kusisto | The Wall Street Journal
The largest U.S. apartment landlords are betting that hordes of millennials streaming into cities will keep pushing rents sky-high.
But an expected spike in new supply in some key markets suggests their wager might be shakier than they thought.
After a five-year boom in which rents have jumped by about 20% nationwide, some of the nation’s biggest cities—New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Boston among them—are beginning to see slower increases. Annual rent growth for high-end urban apartments peaked at nearly 8% at the end of 2011 and has since slowed to just over 3%, according to MPF Research, which tracks the apartment market.
