Rent Index

What is Rental Index?

The Rent Index is the rent charged per property every year. The index is dollar-denominated by computing the mean of listed rents that fall into the 40th to 60th percentile range for all homes and apartments in a given region, which is once again weighted to reflect the rental housing stock.

Rent prices vary greatly by state and by city. Some of the most expensive cities to rent in the United States are New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and Boston. These are the most expensive cities per square foot, so higher rent prices do not equate to more space. Twenty-one states have average rent prices below $1,000 a month. West Virginia has the lowest average rent in the United States of $725 a month, followed by Arkansas with $745 and South Dakota with $747. These are the only three states with rents below $800 a month. The states with the lowest rent prices have the lowest overall costs of living in the United States in general; however, median household incomes also tend to be lower.

Now as we have seen the rent prices. Let us see the prices to buy homes in the next topic.