DALLAS—Multifamily rent growth hasn't been on this kind of winning streak in nearly four years, Axiometrics said Friday. Annual effective rent growth nationwide has been at or above 5% for three months running, the first time since the summer of 2011 that this has been the case.

Longer term, annual effective rent growth has been on a more consistent upward track over the past year—i.e. between April 2014 and April 2015—than over the preceding two years, Axiometrics data show. More recently, it hasn't veered up or down much from 5.0% since December of last year.

Year to date effective rent growth through April 30 was 2.7%, marking the highest April YTD effective rent growth rate since the recession ended. It's six basis points higher than a year ago, and that was in the context of a year that ended as the strongest of the recovery for this metric.

It's a measure of the strength of the multifamily sector that six of the 17 strongest markets for annual effective rent growth were also among those that saw the greatest month-to-month declines in rental growth. San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland, CA were among that number, as were Seattle and Florida's Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. Oakland posted the biggest annual effective rent growth for April at 14.8%--but that represents a 66-bp decline from March.

Conversely, Dallas-based Axiometrics notes that the 10 markets among the Axio top 50 with the largest monthly increases in their growth rates include “not only some emerging metros, but also others that are rebounding from a weak period. To see Detroit, for example, on a list of top gainers could take some by surprise.” Portland, OR leads the list with an improvement of 127 bps between March and April to 10.6%.

Annual effective rent growth wasn't the only metric to see an increase in April. The national occupancy rate as measured by Axiometrics was 95.2% in April, up 22 bps from March's 94.9%. Occupancy last reached 95.2% this past August, the first time it had attained this level since Axiometrics began reporting it on a monthly basis in April 2008.