Regional apartment price increases continue to compress, with only 60 basis points (bps) separating the top-performing region from the bottom one in 2nd quarter 2019. At 3.4%, the West region logged the fastest year-over-year rent growth pace, while the South wasn’t far behind with a price hike of 3.1%. The Northeast and Midwest regions both logged rent growth of 2.8%. Regional performances have been narrowing since U.S. apartment rent growth peaked in 2015. The spread that year approached 500 bps as West region operators pushed rents nearly 8% on an annual basis and rent growth among other regions came in around 3% to 4%. This cycle, the average spread between the top- and bottom-performing regions is 150 bps.
