Multifamily

SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. — After a long period of growth, U.S. multifamily asking rents seem to have finally hit a wall, according to Santa Barbara-based Yardi Matrix’s monthly National Multifamily Report. U.S. multifamily asking rents declined $1 to $1,718 in August — the first month-over-month period since June 2020 without significant growth. “The economy is starting to feel the effects of higher interest rates, while migration is slowing, and the increasing lack of affordability is affecting high-growth metros,” states the report. Asking rents increased in only 10 of Yardi Matrix’s top 30 markets in August, with Philadelphia, San Francisco and Nashville all showing a 0.5 percent growth rate. Metros with the largest decreases in asking rents included Raleigh (-1.3 percent), Seattle (-1.1 percent) and the Inland Empire and Las Vegas (both -0.8 percent). Yardi Matrix attributes this deceleration to multiple factors, including seasonality, cooling in markets that saw rents increase at extraordinarily high rates over the past two years and, most importantly, slowing migration and population figures. With a decreasing population growth rate and legal immigration dropping to its lowest level in decades, the report emphasizes that rent growth in the future is likely to be increasingly defined by migration …