Lawler: Single-Family Rent Results

Invitation Homes, and AMH (American Homes 4 Rent)

From housing economist Tom Lawler:

Below is a table showing the YOY % changes in three widely followed rent indexes:  the Apartment List Rent Index (ALRI, asking rents of apartments, not smoothed); the Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI, rents on “all” rental properties, smoothed via 3-month moving average); and the CoreLogic Single-Family Rent Index (CLSFRI, single-family rents, smoothed via 3-month moving average.)

As the table shows, the ALRI has shown YOY declines since June, while that is not the case for the ZORI or the CLSFRI.

Here is a graph showing the YOY % changes in these indexes from the December 2018 to the latest value.

While these rent indexes attempt to show actual rent trends, they do not necessarily reflect what renters are actually paying today versus a year ago.

With that in mind, here are the latest rent trends just reported from two of the largest publicly traded firms in the single-family rental industry:  Invitation Homes, and AMH (American Homes 4 Rent).  The rent trends are for “same store/same properties.”

Note that while rental growth rates have clearly decelerated at both firms since 2022, the slowdown in rent growth has been nowhere near as large as that in the rent indexes shown above.