As the current cycle wears on, the range of rent performances among the 50 largest U.S. markets continues to narrow. As of mid-2018, the disparity between the best performance – Orlando’s 6.5% – and the worst – Chicago’s 0.3% – was just 620 basis points. That’s the tightest spread since the cycle began in 2010, and it comes as U.S. rent growth continues to moderate. U.S. rent growth peaked around 5% in 2015, when the range of metro-level performances landed around 1,300 basis points.
Jay Board manages analytics content for RealPage, Inc. He serves as chief editor for RealPage Analytics blogs, market reports and other publications, focused on delivering accurate and insightful commentary on apartment performance as well as economic and demographic trends driving the market. He works with the market research, analytics and data science teams to provide expert analysis of current conditions and underlying fundamentals in the national and local conventional and student apartment markets. Since joining RealPage in 2010, Jay has worked as an apartment market analyst, writer and editor. Prior to joining RealPage, Jay was a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Jay is a Dallas native and graduate of Texas A&M University.