Press Release
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September 18, 2025
Single-family rent growth showed new signs of weakness in July
U.S. single-family rent prices increased 2.3% year over year in July 2025
- Annual growth weakened in July after appearing to strengthen for the first half of the year. Growth has dipped below the lower end of the 10-year average range of pre-pandemic growth.
- Rent growth weakened in most large metros in July compared with growth a year ago. Exceptions to this trend were Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.
- Los Angeles fell to the fourth-highest rent growth out of the largest 10 metro areas.
IRVINE, Calif., September 18, 2025 – Cotality, a leading global property information, analytics, and data-enabled solutions provider, released its latest Single-Family Rent Index (SFRI) for July 2025, which analyzes single-family rent price changes nationally and across major metropolitan areas. Single-family rent prices in July 2025 increased 2.3% from July 2024, which is less than the 3.1% average increase a year ago.
“After a strong start to the year, single-family rent growth is clearly losing steam,” said Molly Boesel, senior principal economist at Cotality. “In July, we broadly saw weakening in annual single-family rent growth across metro areas and price tiers. The monthly growth rate came in at just 0.2%, well below the historical July average of 0.7%, and is a notable shift from the stronger-than-usual monthly gains recorded earlier in 2025. Even markets like Los Angeles, which had been buoyed by post-wildfire demand, are now cooling off. Chicago stands out as the exception, leading the nation in rent growth amid tight inventory and resilient demand.”
Annual growth in July dipped below the lower bound of the 10-year average range established in the decade leading up to the pandemic. While rents continued to climb, Cotality saw annual rent growth weaken at all price levels in July. In past months, higher-priced tiers saw stronger growth. Rent prices for high-end properties increased 2.9% year over year in July 2025, a slowdown from the year-over-year gain of 3.2% in July 2024. Low-end rent prices increased 1.6% year over year in July 2025, down from a 2.8% gain in July 2024.
Rent for detached rentals grew by 2.2%, and attached rental rates rose by 1.8% in July 2025.
Among the largest 10 metros areas, Chicago moved to the top of this list for the highest rent growth at 5.1% in July 2025. New York-New Jersey-White Plains, NY-NJ, remained in the second spot with rent growth at 3.7%. Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. rounded out the top five locations with rent growth. Los Angeles' growth is slowing as the demand from the January wildfires dissipates. Miami, where annual rent growth topped 40% in 2022, had the lowest rent growth recorded in July 2025 at 0%.
The next Cotality Single-Family Rent Index will be released on October 23, featuring data for August 2025. For ongoing housing trends and data, visit the Cotality Insights blog: www.cotality.com/insights.
Methodology
The Cotality Single-Family Rent Index (SFRI) applies a repeat pairing methodology to single-family rental listing data in the Multiple Listing Service. The rental listings used to calculate the index include both attached and detached single-family homes, as well as condominiums. This report shows trends for the U.S. and the largest 10 U.S. metropolitan areas. In addition to these 10 metros, the Cotality SFRI is available for close to 100 metropolitan areas — including approximately 50 metros with four value tiers — and a national composite index. The indices are fully revised with each release to signal turning points sooner.
The Cotality Single-Family Rent Index analyzes data across four price tiers: Lower-priced, which represent rentals with prices 75% or below the regional median; lower-middle, 75% to 100% of the regional median; higher-middle, 100%-125% of the regional median; and higher-priced, 125% or more above the regional median.
Median rent price data is produced monthly by Cotality Rental Trends. Rental Trends is built on a database of more than 11 million rental properties (over 75% of all U.S. individually owned rental properties) and covers all 50 states and 17,500 ZIP codes.
About Cotality
Cotality accelerates data, insights, and workflows across the property ecosystem to enable industry professionals to surpass their ambitions and impact society. With billions of real-time data signals across the life cycle of a property, we unearth hidden risks and transformative opportunities for agents, lenders, carriers, and innovators. Get to know us at www.cotality.com.
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