Nearly One-Third of All Apartment Renter Households are Starting Out Singles
In today’s data-driven world, demographic and population trends play a crucial role in supporting new developments and understanding economic challenges. It also can be leveraged as a tool to allocate resources more efficiently and design more sustainable communities. For this reason, the RealPage Data Science team analyzed more than five million signed transactions.
The new study found the typical U.S apartment renter is 31 years old, makes roughly $73,000 per year, and lives in a unit that’s about 900 square feet. While that’s helpful as a baseline assessment, the analysis examined what makes renters similar and different, placing each into one of eight categories.
The largest demographic, Starting Out Singles, accounts for 27% of all apartment renter households and is where a lot of renter households are first formed. The median age of 26 years old makes them the youngest group and budgets are tight, with an annual income of $48,000 per year. As a result, Starting Out Singles lease the smallest units and spend the most amount of their income on rent (27%). Still, that’s enough for these renters to live on their own, rather than with roommates, and they typically opt for Class B or Class C properties.
Starting Out Singles are sensitive to pricing increases and they are the most willing to rent a property with a lower online reputation, or ORA score. Naturally, this cohort struggles when the economy falters. That was especially true following the pandemic and subsequent inflationary challenges, when some in this group coupled up and converted to the cohort. In fact, those two groups make up over half of the nation’s total renter households.
There’s a high concentration of Starting Out Singles renters in the Midwest markets and in slower-growth Sun Belt spots. Metros that lead the way include Memphis (45%), Indianapolis (39%) and Greensboro/Winston-Salem (39%). You’ll also see quite a few Starting Out Single renters in fast-growth Sun Belt metros that are leaders when it comes to offering early career opportunities, including Atlanta, Dallas and Houston.
On the flip side, Starting Out Singles form a smaller share of the total renter mix in coastal gateway markets where few young adults can afford to live alone. These households are scarce in the Bay Area (5%), Los Angeles (8%) and New York City (10%).
Over the next few weeks, we will be covering the eight demographic groups of the nation’s apartment renter base. Stay tuned for our next installment: Roommates by Necessity.
