While apartment rent growth in Louisville lagged the national norm in pre-pandemic times, notably improvement has put the market out front in the past year. In fact, after faring the COVID-19 pandemic-induced recession with only mild impacts, annual effective asking rent growth in Kentucky’s largest city has accelerated nearly every month since June 2020. In the year-ending May 2021, Louisville rents were up 4.4%, the strongest showing this market has seen in nine years, and just ahead of the nationwide comeback of 4.2%. This performance comes after Louisville sustained minor annual rent cuts for only three months before returning to modest rent growth through the fall of 2020. The nation overall, on the other hand, sustained annual rent cuts for 11 consecutive months before pricing pulled back into positive territory as recently as April 2021. Encouraging rent growth, apartment occupancy in Louisville has also strengthened, climbing 110 basis points in the last year to stand at 95.4% as of May.
