Rent Up 3.4 Percent In Hennepin Co. Since Start Of Pandemic: Report
HENNEPIN COUNTY, MN — The average cost of rent has risen slightly quicker than the national average in Hennepin County since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent analysis published by the Washington Post.
The average rent in Hennepin County rose 3.4 percent — to $1,451 — from the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2022, according to the analysis, titled "Rents are rising everywhere. See how much prices are up in your area."
Average rent costs were up 11.3 percent nationally in 2021 and "continue to rise at the fastest pace in decades, making housing costlier than ever for many Americans," the Washington Post reported.
The Washington Post's analysis, which includes an interactive map displaying county-level data, uses rent prices for units in multi-family properties, based on estimates from real estate research firm CoStar Group. The Washington Post said it analyzed U.S. counties with at least 1,000 units.
Only about three dozen U.S. counties included in the analysis have average rents that are lower in 2022 than in 2020, with none in Minnesota.
Dennis Shea, executive director of the J. Ronald Terwilliger Center for Housing Policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told the Washington Post that "the lowest-income families are being hardest hit by rising rents and a lack of supply" of homes on the market.
Wright County had the highest average rent increase (16 percent) in Minnesota, followed by Chisago County (15 percent) and Isanti County (14.6 percent), according to the Washington Post.
Washington County had the fourth-highest average rent increase, at 11.4 percent. All other counties in Minnesota were below the national average.
The average rent has grown by 5 percent — to $1,354 — in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington metropolitan area since the start of the pandemic in 2020, the Washington Post reported. That rate is tied for the fifth-lowest of all 190 metro areas with at least 250,000 people that were included in the analysis.
Four of the top five metro areas with the fastest growing rents are in Florida, with rents climbing 39 percent in the past two years in the Naples-Marco Island metro area and 35 percent in the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton metro area, according to the Washington Post.
Chambers County, Alabama, has seen the highest rate of rent growth since 2020 (44 percent), followed by Rockdale County, Georgia, at 40 percent, the analysis shows.
Read the full analysis at the Washington Post.
Rent Up 3.4 Percent In Hennepin Co. Since Start Of Pandemic: Report originally appeared on the Richfield Patch
