Apartment rents in Kent were up just 0.8% in June compared to the same month in 2019.
Rents held steady month-over-month and are down 0.1% since the start of the pandemic in March, according to the latest report by apartmentlist.com. Spring is normally peak season for rental activity, and from 2014 to 2019, rent growth from March to June in Kent averaged 2.1%.
Currently, median rents in Kent stand at $1,501 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,870 for a two-bedroom. Kent’s year-over-year rent growth of 0.8% leads the state average of 0.5%, as well as the national average of 0.2%.
Throughout the past year, rent increases have been occurring not just in the city of Kent, but across the entire Seattle-Tacoma metro area.
Lakewood has the least expensive rents in the metro area, with a two-bedroom median of $1,507; the city has also experienced the fastest rent growth in the metro, with a year-over-year increase of 2.0%. Bellevue has the most expensive rents, with a two-bedroom median of $2,402; however, the city has also seen rents fall by 0.8% over the past month, the biggest drop in the metro.
Although rents across cities in Washington have been slightly on the rise, the state’s growth as a whole has held steady over the past year. For example, rents have grown by 2.3% in Spokane and 0.3% in Vancouver.
Kent’s median two-bedroom rent of $1,870 is above the national average of $1,192. Nationwide, rents have held steady over the past year.
Renters will generally find more expensive prices in Kent than most large cities. For example, Spokane has a median two-bedroom rent of $906, where Kent is more than twice that price.
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