Los Angeles-Long-Beach-Anaheim tops the rankings of the nation’s most expensive single-family rental markets, according to HouseCanary. The median monthly rent there is $4,984. At the other end of the spectrum, the least expensive SFR market for renters is Little Rock, AR at $1,267 per month. 

That being said, single-family rents in mid-2023 weren’t much different from those at the same time last year. At the close of the second quarter of 2023, the median national rent was $2,500, a 13.64% increase since the same period in 2021 but only a 0.2% increase since the same period in 2022. 

“Although SFR prices have risen significantly in recent years, year-over-year prices from 2022 to 2023 only experienced a slight increase,” HouseCanary reported. “This is attributable to a significant expansion in available-for-rent inventory, which has surged by 70% compared to the same period in 2022.  

“At the same point last year, double-digit increases year-over-year in price were observed when comparing Q2 2021 to Q2 2022,” according to HouseCanary’s latest State of the Single-Family Rental Market report. “This signals that rental prices have about reached their peak and are expected to trend downwards in the coming months. “In addition, the figure for days on market increased 50% from the year-ago period, “indicating rental properties are sitting on market longer.” 

While the Federal Reserve may ease rate hikes in the future, rental prices are still expected to remain high in the coming months. As such, there is a chance of Y-O-Y price decreases in the second half of 2023. However, HouseCanary says inventory is unlikely to keep increasing at the rates we’ve seen in recent years and likely will remain steady or start coming back down slightly over the remainder of the year. 

Looking forward to the remainder of Q3 and second half of 2023, “it is expected that prices have likely peaked for the time being and there is little room for additional growth,” HouseCanary says. “The elevated inventory available for rent, as well as high rental prices from a historical perspective, will put a continued drag on future rental price growth.

“In addition, single-family rentals will remain attractive to potential home buyers due to the high prices and high interest rates faced in the purchase market. This will provide somewhat of a floor to any possible large decreases in rental prices.” 

The National Rental Report produced by HouseCanary summarizes the state of the single-family detached rental market by aggregating key metrics at state and MSA levels. The data and analytics summaries include key statistics for 46 states and 204 metropolitan areas. The company says its data and analytics include third-party listings received from MLS providers that are normalized and appropriately cleaned to accurately reflect the trends currently happening in the SFR space.