Editor’s Note: Each Friday, WRAL TechWire takes a deep dive into the Triangle’s real estate markets. That includes stories on what’s happening in the Triangle’s residential market and the commercial real estate market.
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RALEIGH – The price of renting a home in the Raleigh area continued to grow at the highest rate of any major metropolitan area in January 2023, the latest monthly report from national real estate brokerage Redfin showed.
Despite nationwide rental rates slowing to just 2.4% annual growth between January 2022 and January 2023, Raleigh asking rents rose at a rate of 22.5% year over year.
That’s at a faster rate than in November 2022, when Raleigh ranked first in the nation for annual percentage increase in asking rents in Redfin’s data set. The region also ranked first in annual growth in December, the prior Redfin report found.
As of January 2023, the median asking rental rate in the Raleigh region was $2,119, according to Redfin. That’s an increase from November, when median asking rents in Raleigh were $2,100.
Rents in Raleigh soar at fastest rate in top 50 US cities, report says
Why are Raleigh rents rising?
Housing affordability continues to be of concern to many in Wake County and the Triangle region. And that’s especially true for those who rent in Wake County, a recent report from the North Carolina Housing Coalition found.
That report noted that 26% of households in Wake County are cost burdened, meaning they spend at least 30% of household income on housing costs.
But 45% of renters face a cost burden to secure housing in the county, the report found.
“The market just isn’t creating the housing that folks can afford,” said Stephanie Watkins-Cruz, director of housing policy for the North Carolina Housing Coalition in an interview with WRAL TechWire last month.
Housing crunch: Whether buying or renting, rising costs hammer Wake households
Costs are rising
Raleigh continues to attract new residents, and the demand for housing is outpacing the region’s supply. This, the cost of living increases.
That rising cost is what Redfin is tracking, in the rental price that property owners are asking for when listing a rental as available. The analysis tracks median asking rent among the 50 most populous metropolitan areas in the nation, for which data was available.
And Raleigh ranked first in the nation for the annual increase in asking rents, outpacing the second-place ranked market in Cleveland, Ohio, which saw asking rents grow 17.5% year over year.
The Charlotte metropolitan area saw the fourth highest percentage increase in the nation, according to the report. Asking rents grew by 14.2% in the Charlotte area, according to the report.
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WRAL TechWire reporter Jason Parker, who is also a licensed North Carolina real estate agent, works with journalists from WRAL.com to track and present market data and report on how people are experiencing the region's changing real estate markets. These special reports will use the category tag "Triangle Real Estate" or "Triangle Real Estate Market.
