Rent Report
San Antonio rent prices will only go up from here, says new report
Recently, Abodo released its midyear rent report, detailing rental price trends throughout the country during the first six months of 2017. Nationally, rents remained fairly steady from January to July — despite falling through March, the nation's average one-bedroom rent eventually returned to $1,016, exactly where it was in January. As usual, cities like San Francisco and New York topped the list for highest median rent, with one-bedrooms going for $3,240 and $2,919, respectively.
But what about Texas? At $871, Texas' average one-bedroom rent for the first half of 2017 was significantly lower than the national average. It changed an average of 1.12 percent over the year's first six months, decreasing from $848 in January to a low of $829 in February, before steadily climbing to a high of $905 in July.
No Texas cities were included on the list of the nation's highest rents, although one — Houston — saw some of the greatest average rent growth over the first half of the year, with rents growing an average of 3.8 percent per month. (They're currently $1,053 in the Bayou City.) Two cities — Lubbock and El Paso — experienced some of the greatest average rental drops in the first half of 2017, with rents falling an average of 2.6 percent and 2.3 percent per month.
San Antonio has long been known as one of the more affordable major metropolises in the country, but as the city grows, its rents are climbing. The average rent for a one-bedroom in San Antonio during the first six months of 2017 was $840 — about $30 cheaper than the state average over the same period — but rents increased every month from January to July at an average rate of 0.77 percent. In January, a one-bedroom cost $819 per month. In July, that figure was $858. Two-bedrooms also saw steady monthly increases, from a low of $1,078 in January to $1,111 in July.
Time will tell if the second half of 2017 brings the same rental increases to the San Antonio area. But San Antonio's population, which has almost doubled since 1980, shows no signs of decreasing in the coming years.
Central Texas — especially the I-35 corridor between Austin and San Antonio — is one of the fastest-growing regions in the country, and as development attempts to keep pace with increasing demand, rent isn't likely to significantly decrease anytime soon.
