After seven years of work and more than $18 million invested, Harbor Village, a new affordable housing development in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, officially opened its doors in January.
The 40-unit rental development came together thanks to Safe Harbour, a housing nonprofit based in Carlisle.
By the time Safe Harbour started screening prospective tenants, there were over 400 applications, said Scott Shewell, the group’s long-time president and CEO.
“And I still get calls every day,” he told USA TODAY.
The median apartment rent in Carlisle was $1,259 in May. It was one of the fastest-growing areas for rent prices that month, up 6% from a year ago, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Apartment List data.
Shewell wasn’t surprised. The area, he said, has seen blockbuster growth over the past several years and even well-meaning local governments committed to affordable housing haven’t been able to keep up with the demand.
Population in Carlisle borough has gone up nearly 12% since 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
In May, Manhattan, Kansas, led other metros as the fastest-growing market in rental prices. The metro saw a 14% increase in rent prices from the same month last year. It was followed by Abilene, Texas; Grand Forks, North Dakota-Minnesota and Shreveport-Bossier City, Louisiana.
Recent data shows that the rental prices in most metro areas have leveled off, but for millions of renters, the typical rent still remains dramatically higher than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
The USA TODAY analysis of Apartment List data for 202 metro areas found that average monthly rent between January and May was significantly higher in 94% of the metros, compared with the same period in 2019.
Excluding the handful that stayed about the same as pre-pandemic levels, the data showed that prices were up by an average of 31%.
The pandemic supercharged the rental market, breaking old patterns of steady growth as the population shuffled, cities closed, and people started working from home. After a short drop in rental prices, prices rebounded aggressively, hitting record highs before flattening in the latter half of 2022.
The impact has been felt across the board, from Manhattan in New York City to Manhattan in Kansas.
The Apartment List data shows that the new level remained steady in May 2025, which, although a relief, does not do away with the rent burden the already high prices have put on families.
According to census data, about 25% of renters in America are so rent-burdened that they spent more than half of their income on rent in 2023. That figure was 22% in 2019. A three-percentage point difference means millions more Americans are spending a substantial chunk of their paycheck in rent.
When these high prices were accompanied by broader inflation in groceries, gas and energy, the strain was felt by families – charting up as a top issue in the 2024 presidential election, in which Americans elected President Donald Trump who centered his campaign on bringing down prices.
Housing market experts say that the rental market might have settled on a new baseline, which means prices might not go back down to what they were in 2019.
Read more: Work from home is reshaping the housing market 5 years after COVID
Rob Warnock, a senior research associate at Apartment List, said a reversal to pre-pandemic prices is unlikely, as we’re now at a level for how much housing costs.
“More realistic than rent prices coming down is rent prices stabilizing at a place where incomes can catch up,” Warnock said.
For now, two trends in the market have emerged to keep the rental prices at a stable level: slowed rental demand and a recent construction frenzy.
“The past year has been really defined by a lot of new housing construction that was built over the previous three years, coupled with fairly low demand in the rental market,” Warnock said. “As a result, what we see is that prices are largely flat, if not down.”
A race to build
There are only a handful of metros where rent prices have decreased over the past year. Notable among them is Bozeman, Montana, where people flocked during the pandemic for lower costs and outdoor spaces while working remotely.
“(It) expedited everyone’s decision-making to move to a town like Bozeman. There’s a lot of fantasy around it,” said Casey Rose, an adviser at Sterling Commercial Real Estate Advisors.
Amid the increased demand in the Montana mountain metro, developers started to build apartments. Many of the projects were delivered at the same time, which resulted in very low vacancy rates, Rose said.
Compared with last year, rents in Bozeman are down roughly 10%, the second largest decline, according to the Apartment List data.
But the actual prices, Rose said, can be masked by incentives like offering two months of free rent, or even a free iPad, TV, or ski pass.
A similar pattern has played out in Austin, where rental prices are down 6.4% compared with a year ago.
Stacey Auzanne, a property manager and a third-generation Austin resident, watched pandemic digital nomads flood into the city, while builders kept erecting new developments, creating a supply glut that kept rental prices suppressed.
Auzanne, who manages dozens of properties, said the landlords she works with are holding rents steady, with one even dropping the price $50 a month. It’s worth it to keep good tenants in place, she said – particularly in a market where there’s more supply than demand.
“The market just kept accelerating and the bubble burst,” Auzanne said. “This year, we’re really feeling it.”
Experts raised concerns that prices could go up because of the changing political landscape that has seen a stringent tariff policy and crackdown on immigrants who form a large part of the construction workforce.
While housing inflation has dropped from its peak of over 8% in early 2023, costs have not fallen as quickly as overall inflation. According to consumer price index data released by the Labor Department on Wednesday, rent inflation was at 3.8% in May, the smallest annual increase since January 2022. This slowdown reflects lower rents for new leases finally filtering into rates for existing tenants. While the overall rise in consumer prices was modest in May, housing costs remained the largest contributor to inflation, accounting for 35% of all price increases.
More: CPI report reveals inflation crept higher in May as tariff impact was tamer than expected
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rents remain far above pre-COVID levels. Check prices in your area
