It Costs More to Rent a House These Days

HOUSTON – (By Dale King, Realty News Report) – Rents for Houston’s single-family homes have risen more than 2% in the last year as a national trend hardens over the housing market: would-be home buyers seek shelter in rentals because of affordability challenges.

With mortgage rates close to 7 percent and home prices rising in many cities, buying a house is out of reach for many Americans.

“It’s not surprising that many would-be buyers, deterred by elevated home prices and interest rates, are staying in the rental market, driving up demand, said Molly Boesel, senior principal economist at Cotality. “Monthly gains in the single-family rent index have consistently outpaced seasonal norms this year, suggesting that annual rent growth for 2025 is on track to exceed 3 percent.”

The price of single-family rental housing continues to grow on a nationwide basis, says the Single-Family Rent Index for May 2025 compiled by Cotality, a global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider formerly known as CoreLogic.

Despite the variability of price hikes noted in the report, the single-family home rental market overall is faring well, says Cotality. “Annual single-family rent increases accelerated in May for the fourth consecutive month, signaling sustained momentum in the rental market,”

The Cotality study examines price changes among single-family rental houses throughout the United States and in the 10 largest metropolitan areas. The data in the report is based on the median net prices of three-bedroom single-family rental homes.

Among regions analyzed, the New York-New Jersey-White Plains region notched the Number 1 spot in rent growth with a year-over-year growth rate of 6.4 percent. At the other extreme, a deep southern locale – the Dallas-Plano-Irving area – came in at Number 10, nudging the progress meter by a small, but still positive, margin of 0.3 percent.

The report does give Dallas some thumbs-up points. Single-family rents in the north Texas metro increased year-over-year in May, reversing a trend from the prior two months.

In fact, Big D was cited for several reasons. Dallas continues to have the lowest rent growth in the nation with its posting of 0.3 percent in May. The index shows a decrease in rents for attached rentals in Dallas while the rental cost for detached units is increasing.

Houston Rents Up 2.3%

The key Lone Star State metro, the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands area, found itself a little higher up on the chart of 10 leading communities, landing at Number 8 with growth recorded at 2.3 percent in May 2025 compared to May 2024.

Nationally, growth statistics compiled for May of 2025 showed that single-family home rent prices increased 1.1 percent from the previous month, faster than the 0.9 percent hike registered last year and closer to the average May increases that took place before the pandemic.

Overall payments for single-family rentals increased by 3.1 percent compared to 3 percent in May of 2024. This trend continues the price progress seen in the past few months as the cost of single-family rental homes continues a move back to pre-pandemic growth rates. Before COVID, those hikes were around 3.4 percent.

Cotality’s Boesel said that rent prices for high-end properties increased 3.8 percent year over year in May 2025, a pickup from the year-over-year gain of 3 percent in May 2024. Low-end rent prices increased 2.3 percent year-over-year in May 2025, a decrease from the 2.9 percent gain in May 2024.

Rent for detached rentals grew by 2.6 percent and attached rental rates rose by 2.8 percent in May 2025.

The New York-Jersey City-White Plains metro area saw the highest rent growth, moving to the top of the SFRI at 6.4 percent in May 2025. It was followed closely by Chicago which came in second at 6.2 percent for the month.

Los Angeles fell to Number 6 in rent growth out of the largest 10 metro areas, the result of virtual disappearance in demand due to the January wildfires.

Other results in the Cotality study were: