Add together the past five years – combining the pre-pandemic, heart-of-pandemic and getting-past-pandemic eras – and the Arlington apartment market has somewhat underperformed the nation as a whole, according to new data.
But that’s largely owing to the steep initial decline in apartment rents at the very start of the pandemic in the first half of 2020, according to figures from Apartment List.
A new data tool from the analytics firm tells the story of how the rental market transformed from stable growth before the pandemic to wild, divergent swings after.
“Rents in some cities cratered in 2020, while rents in other cities soared,” analysts said. “A year later, rent inflation gripped the whole country in 2021, but is subsiding today.”
The firm, which has been tracking rent prices for more than a half-decade, put together a chart analyzing performance of each of the 100 urban areas it surveys each month.
The graphic can be found at https://apartmentlist.com/research/visualizing-rent-growth-in-the-us-housing-market. The takeaway, comparing Arlington’s performance to the national average, is below:
• 2018: Rent growth was +4% in Arlington, +3% nationwide.
• 2019: +3% in Arlington, +2% nationwide.
• 2020: -13% in Arlington, -1% nationwide.
• 2021: +16% in Arlington, +18% nationwide.
• 2022: +4% in Arlington, +4% nationwide.
With a median December monthly rental price of $2,143 ($2,023 for one-bedroom units, $2,421 for two bedrooms), Arlington ranked as the 10th most expensive urban area among the 100 tracked by Apartment List.
That’s among the highest in the nation (60 percent higher than the national median rent of $1,344) and the highest in the Washington metro area (where the median rent was $1,903).
Figures for January should be released shortly.