Renters are getting a rare break, and they have the multifamily supply boom to thank for it. According to Zillow, 74% of rental listings on its platform were affordable to a median-income household in May, the highest share ever for that time of year. In several markets, including Raleigh, Austin, Louisville and Salt Lake City, roughly 9 in 10 rentals met that affordability bar, signaling just how much new product has come online and how it is filtering through the market.
This shift is occurring even as rents and income requirements continue to rise. Zillow reports that the income needed to afford rent climbed 1.9% year over year to 78,035 dollars in May, up 35.9% since the pandemic began. Rent still cost the median household 26.9% of its income, compared to 26.2% before the pandemic, and overall affordability slipped 0.3 percentage points from a year earlier, highlighting how fragile these gains remain.
The headline affordability improvement rests on a key data point that speaks directly to investor strategy: rent growth has downshifted sharply under the weight of a construction boom. Zillow attributes the slower pace of rent increases to a multifamily development surge that reached a 50-year high in 2024, adding supply just as borrowing costs eased and competition for each unit cooled. As a result, typical rent rose just 2%, or $19 a month, over the prior year, a far cry from the double-digit increases that defined the early pandemic period.
For investors, the numbers split along product type. The typical asking rent for multifamily units reached $1,783 in May, up 0.5% from April, 1.3% year over year and 29.2% since the start of the pandemic, according to Zillow.
Rents climbed in 32 of the 50 largest metros, with the strongest gains in San Francisco, Virginia Beach, San Jose, Chicago and New York. Within the multifamily segment, 79.4% of rentals were affordable, up from 75.5% the year before, suggesting that even modest rent growth can coexist with improved affordability when supply catches up and incomes edge higher.
Single-family rentals tell a related but more aggressive story. Zillow finds that typical single-family rents rose to $2,291 in May, an increase of 2.8% from the previous year and 46.3% since the onset of the pandemic. The sharpest increases showed up in Providence, Buffalo, Milwaukee, San Jose and Virginia Beach, reinforcing how SFR portfolios and build-to-rent strategies continue to benefit from household preferences for more space and suburban locations even as multifamily supply ramps up.
Despite the aggregate improvement, affordability remains deeply uneven across markets. Zillow identifies Salt Lake City, Austin, Raleigh, Minneapolis and Denver as the most affordable large metros for renters based on its metrics. At the other end of the spectrum, New York, Miami, Riverside and Boston emerge as the least affordable.
Even within this more favorable backdrop, some large markets are slipping. In seven major metros, the share of affordable rentals declined compared to a year ago, Zillow reports. In Pittsburgh, that share fell from 80.3% to 77.6%, while in San Francisco it edged down from 69.8% to 68.4%, reflecting how localized rent dynamics and income trends can diverge from the national narrative.
Rent concessions add another layer to the story and offer a window into landlord leverage. Zillow estimates that 39.6% of renters benefited from concessions in May, just 0.2 percentage points fewer than in April but 4.44 percentage points more than a year earlier.
On a monthly basis, the share of renters receiving concessions fell in 33 major metros and rose in 17, yet compared to the prior year, more concessions were offered in 44 of the largest metros, suggesting that owners are still using incentives to stabilize occupancy and lease up new supply even as rent growth slows.
The share of rentals leasing for less than $1,000 a month is another telling indicator for investors focused on workforce housing. Zillow notes that this share climbed 8.8% to its highest level since 2022, an indication that more lower-priced units have come to market and that the affordability gains are not confined to luxury product.
Combined with the record share of listings affordable to median-income households, this data points to a market in which renters are regaining some bargaining power and owners must compete more directly on price, concessions and amenities.
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