The Rental Market
Some sources throughout the country indicate that rents are going lower but in general, rents still appear to be going higher.

According to HotPads, U.S. renters paid out $500 billion in rent in 2018, which is an increase of over $12 billion from 2017.

Many homeowners use HotPads to list their homes for rent.

According to the HotPads report, there were approximately 43.2 million renter households in the U.S., which is 100,000 less than there were in 2017.

This seems to indicate that the difference can be found in those jumping into the first-time home buyer market.

What’s forcing renters out of the rental market is the cost of renting, not the affordability of owning a home.

The research issued by HotPads indicates that the current median rent is $1,475, which is up 3% from a year ago. This contrasts with some other research that came out indicating rents are going lower on a national basis.

The HotPads report indicates that the New York City metro area spent the most on rent in 2018, totaling $55.6 billion, which is 10% of the entire national total. But even in New York, its market is slowing down to an annual rate of just 1%, which compared to 1.8% this time last year.