The wild swings in US rental prices are finally easing as apartment rents stabilize around $1,500, listing service says

• Apartment rents are normalizing as more inventory comes into the market, listings platform Zumper said. 
• The national median price for a one-bedroom apartment is $1,495 in April, flat month over month. 
• Rents in Miami were on the rise with tenants seeking out luxury locations. 

Rental prices for apartments were normalizing throughout much of the US this month, offering some stability for tenants and real estate owners while potentially easing high inflation. 

April was the sixth consecutive month to mark modest month-over-month changes in national rent prices, listings platform Zumper said Wednesday in its rent report.

For a one-bedroom apartment, the national median price of $1,495 was flat over the last month. For a two-bedroom place, the national median price of $1,842 was up by 0.5%. 

"The roller-coaster days of the pandemic—with wildly unpredictable price changes tied to mass migrations—are behind us," Zumper said. "File that under good news: Armed with a clearer sense of where prices are going, tenants and property owners alike can better plan and budget for the future." 

The company said prices remain relatively stable because of a record number of new rentals coming to market. However, the new inventory was still not sufficient to resolve the country's housing shortage. 

One-bedroom median rent over the last month was down in 39 of the top cities tracked by Zumper. Prices in 35 cities were slightly higher while they were flat in 29 cities. The report also found the one-bedroom median price was up 6% year over year, lower than the double-digit increases throughout much of 2021 and 2022.

New York City ranked first in a list of median prices for one-bedroom apartments at $3,570, followed by Jersey City, NJ, at $3,000. San Francisco came in third, also at $3,000. Miami replaced Boston in the fourth spot, at $2,840. That price was up 6% over the last month and up 61% from January 2020 when one-bedroom median rent in Miami was $1,760. 

"Miami's new renters are disproportionately interested in luxury amenities. Resort-style perks like concierge services, on-site restaurants and free fitness classes are increasingly common in Miami apartment communities," Zumper said.

The Federal Reserve has been watching shelter data, which includes rent, to determine how to pull down decades-high inflation.

Rental prices climbed further with the Fed's aggressive lifting of interest rates that began last year. As policy tightened, bond yields and mortgage rates rose, forcing many would-be homebuyers to delay purchases and pressuring rental prices in turn. 

With interest rates still elevated and economic uncertainty brewing, competition for rentals remains high, said Zumper. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose to 6.55% last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. 

Meanwhile, the listings company also said much of the new inventory that's been coming on line was being marketed as luxury locations. But it found that vacancy rates in luxury buildings were rising as tenants scale back because they are worried about the economy cooling.  

"That means these new Class A properties coming to market in many cities will have a harder lease-up period than originally anticipated, putting downward pressure on luxury rental pricing," Zumper CEO Anthemos Georgiades said in the April report.