In its monthly examination of the changes in the price of a one-bedroom apartment in the nation’s major metros, ABODO notes that nine of the cities where rents increased over the past month are located in eight of Politico’s 11 electoral “swing states”: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The top three metros with the highest rent increases and, overall, seven of the top 10 cities this month were in one of these states.
Rise and Fall
Miami experienced a 9% jump in one-bedroom apartment rent this month, from $1,739 to $1,891, the greatest increase out of the study’s metro areas. Virginia Beach, Va., and Milwaukee were next on the list, each with rent increases of 7%.
“There is a lot of pressure on rental properties in cities with rising prices like Miami, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis,” says Sam Radbil, ABODO’s senior communications manager. “Millennials are renting apartments for longer periods of time than the generations that came before them; housing inventory is tighter; the housing crash has scared a lot of potential homeowners; and one group that many people forget about is now renting—baby boomers. Boomers are downsizing and looking for a more convenient lifestyle in trendier areas of the city. All of these factors are causing a high demand for apartments, which leads to increased rent prices."
Meanwhile, the steepest drop occurred in El Paso, Texas, where apartment rent fell 12%, from $830 to $731. Two swing-state cities were among the fastest-falling metros for one-bedroom apartment rent: Columbus, Ohio, where rents fell by 10% from September to October, and Las Vegas, where rents fell by 5%.
The Relationship Between Rents and Elections
According to a Gallup poll held in April, Americans are more worried about financial issues this year than they were last year and 34% are concerned about housing costs, up by 2% over 2015’s statistics. ABODO notes that the state of the economy has been a hot topic during the presidential campaign, although the dialogue is usually about job creation, taxes, and trade, rather than housing.
“Although Hillary Clinton’s platform includes a $25 billion housing investment program, she didn’t mention it in the first presidential debate,” the report says. “The closest Donald Trump came to the topic was disputing former Secretary Clinton’s claim that he was at the center of the housing crisis and, in fact, profited from it.”
The total number of American renters has grown by nine million over the past 10 years, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard. In other words, in the cities where rents have risen, more potential voters, particularly those who live in one-bedroom apartments, are experiencing greater economic pressures. ABODO notes that there is no indication that the potential result of the presidential election and rental price trends are in any way related but acknowledges the curiosity inherent in this economic pressure on an electoral battleground.
“The above data, however limited in scope, provide an interesting look at a single factor that is often symptomatic of a larger set of economic issues, during an election cycle in which issues of class, employment, and the economy have played such important roles,” the report says.
