Apartment rental prices continue to rise across Fairfax County, even as they cool nationally, and nowhere in the county is pricier for renters than Tysons.
With a median rental price of $2,450 for one-bedroom apartments and $2,938 for two bedrooms, Tysons topped Fairfax County in May and was second only to Arlington regionally, according to new data from Apartment List.
The median rental price for apartments in Tysons was up 3.2% from a year before. All of the other sub-sectors of Fairfax tracked by Apartment List also posted increases:
- Annandale: The median rental price for May was $1,943 for one-bedroom units, $2,217 for two bedrooms, representing a year-over-year increase of 8.8%
- Centreville: $2,130/$2,475, up 3.9%
- Fair Oaks: $2,324/$2,598, up 3.5%
- Fairfax: $1,990/$2,277, up 3.5%
- Herndon: $1,879/$2,255, up 3.4%
- Merrifield: $2,383/$2,928, up 3.7%
- Reston: $2,260/$2,393, up 3.8%
Across the D.C. metro area, only Arlington exceeded Tysons when it came to apartment rental costs. That county’s median rental rates in May were $2,458 for one-bedroom units and $3,006 for two bedrooms.
For the region as a whole, the median rental rate of $2,208 was up 2.2% year-over-year. Nationally, the median of $1,398 was down 0.5%.
Apartment List analysts said that after a huge increase in national rental costs during the early stages of the pandemic, the market has corrected — to an extent.
“Since the second half of 2022, rent prices have continued to ebb and flow with the seasons as they typically do, but with the overall trajectory trending modestly downward. Following a period of record-setting rent growth through 2021 and the first half of 2022, the national median rent has now fallen below its August 2022 peak by a total of 3.1 percent, or $44 per month. But despite the cooldown, the typical rent price remains 22 percent higher than its January 2021 level.”
Expanding inventory in some major markets has caused “fairly steep” year-over-year rent declines in some areas, including Austin, where the median rental price is down 6.3% year-over-year; Denver, down 4.8%; and Phoenix, off 3.1%.
Other markets, however, continue to challenge would-be renters seeking bargains. The Fresno, California, metropolitan area had the highest year-over-year increase (up 5.9%), followed by San Francisco (4.4%) and Chicago (4.3%).
On the supply side of the rental market, Apartment List’s national vacancy index currently sits at 7%, a new high in the history of a monthly data series that goes back to the start of 2017.
“After a historic tightening in 2021, multi-family occupancy has been slowly but consistently easing for over three years amid an influx of new inventory,” analysts said. “2024 saw the most new apartment completions since the mid-1980s, and although we’re past the peak of new multifamily construction, this year is still bringing a robust level of new supply.”
