Rents in Harrisburg rise for fifth consecutive month

Rents in Harrisburg jumped 4.6% over the past month, coming in at $922 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,116 for a two-bedroom unit.

That’s according to Apartment List‘s July Rent Report, which also showed median rents were up 24.4% in the capital city compared with the same time last year and 25.3% higher than they were in March 2020, before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

After rents fell in January, this is the fifth straight month that Harrisburg has seen an increase.

Overall, Apartment List’s U.S. rent index rose 2.3%, pushing the U.S. median rent above pre-pandemic projections. To date in 2021, rents are up 9.2% nationally.

“To put that in context, in previous years growth from January to June is usually just 2 to 3%,” the report said.

“2021 brought the fastest rent growth we have on record in our data.”

At this point, rents are “well above our expectations of where they would have been had the pandemic not disrupted the market.”

The report explained that in spring 2020, during what is typically the busiest season for the rental market, COVID-19 sent prices downward. For the rest of the year, the Apartment List national index stayed 4% or so below its projected level.

But rents have since rebounded – and then some.

(Apartment List noted in the report that it has changed its methodology to skew less toward luxury units, reducing the likelihood of sample bias.)

Even with rents rising sharply in Harrisburg, apartments there are still more affordable than in many larger metropolitan areas. The typical two-bedroom there is $78 cheaper than the national median of $1,194.

Chris Salviati, housing economist with Apartment List, said in an email that “the data continues to show significant regional variation. Rents in a handful of pricey markets are still well below pre-pandemic levels, but prices (there) are rapidly rebounding. At the other end of the spectrum, in many midsized cities where rents recovered quickly from the pandemic, prices continue to boom.”

Some of the cities that saw rent decreases over the past year are San Francisco (-10.2%), Seattle (-3.9%) and New York (-3.0%), according to the report.

Still, San Francisco’s two-bedroom median rent is $2,695, nearly two-and-a-half times Harrisburg’s cost.

Rents in San Francisco are 14% lower than they were in March 2020, but 17% higher than they were in January 2021. Other metropolises that have bounced back since January are Seattle (+19%) and New York (+16%).

In hard-hit cities like San Francisco and New York, renters can still find apartments at discounted rates because of the lingering effects of the pandemic.

Among the booming midsize markets is Spokane, Washington, which experienced the country’s fastest rent growth in June at 8.1%. Rents there have skyrocketed 31% since the pandemic began.

In some major markets in June, the report said, such as Austin, Texas, and San Diego, “rents caught up with pre-pandemic expectations.”

The report said several fast-growing cities in the Western U.S., including Fresno, California, are absorbing the rental demand overflowing from the Bay Area and greater Los Angeles.

One trend the report highlighted is the shrinking gap between rents. Apartments in the most expensive markets are relatively cheaper now while those in the most affordable markets have gotten pricier.

An example would be San Francisco and Boise, Idaho, where the difference in rents for a median two-bedroom apartment is now $1,392; in March 2020, it was $2,217.