St. Louis Ranks Among Nation's Top Rent Growth Markets

In the past year, St. Louis has quickly become one of the strongest rent growth markets nationwide. Effective asking rents increased 2.4% year-over-year in St. Louis as of February, according to data from RealPage Market Analytics. Among the nation’s largest 50 apartment markets, St. Louis ranked among the top 10 for annual rent growth, joining the typically big price increase markets of San Francisco, San Jose, New York and Chicago, as well as Virginia Beach in the South and a handful of other Midwest markets including Cleveland, Cincinnati, Minneapolis and Kansas City. Rent growth of any kind in the past year ran contrary to the U.S. average. In fact, among the 50 major markets, less than half recorded rent growth in the year-ending February. Additionally, a top-tier rent growth performance is not the norm for St. Louis. Even during the pandemic-era surge, St. Louis trailed the U.S. average annual increase. But in the past three years, the script has flipped, and St. Louis rent growth has paced ahead of the national norm.