Seattle-area rents are rising again

Rent is ticking up again in the Seattle area and nationwide, after new apartment construction temporarily helped slow the pace of rent hikes .

The big picture: Despite a national surge in apartment construction last year, the average U.S. rent from March to June remained 19% above pre-pandemic levels, according to CoStar Group data.

• In the Seattle area, the average asking rent from March to June was about 16% higher than it was at the end of 2019, and about 2.5% higher than the same period in 2023, per CoStar.

By the numbers: From March to June, rent for Seattle-area apartments averaged $2,043 — almost 20% above the national average of $1,713, the data shows.

Yes, but: Rent has risen more slowly in recent months as more new apartments have come online, Zillow chief economist Skylar Olsen wrote in a market update this week .

• In Seattle, the typical rent rose by 0.1% from July to August, per Zillow. That's a much smaller month-to-month increase than the monthly upticks Zillow reported for Seattle earlier this year.
• Last fall, rent in Seattle even fell toward the end of the year, Zillow's data shows.

Between the lines: As the national market cools, more property managers are offering renters sweeteners such as free weeks of rent or free parking, per a recent Zillow report .

• About 44% of Seattle-area rental listings on the platform offered a concession in July, up 12 percentage points from a year earlier.
• Analysts at Moody's say concessions are at the highest level on record.

What's next: The number of multifamily units currently under construction in Seattle has fallen below 20,000, compared to a peak of nearly 29,000 units in progress about a year ago, Elliott Krivenko, CoStar's director of market analytics in Seattle, told Axios.

• That slowdown "could signal that the modest improvements in rent affordability may not last for long," Olsen wrote.