Why Columbus apartment rents rank among the fastest-rising in the nation

Columbus home buyers aren't the only ones suffering sticker shock. Central Ohio rents are also rising among the fastest in the nation.

The median rent for a Columbus apartment was $1,298 at the end of the year, up 3.8% from a year earlier, the third highest jump in the nation behind New York City and northern New Jersey, according to the real estate service Yardi Matrix.

More: Central Ohio needs more homes, so why aren't we seeing them?

Even in the least expensive parts of town, average rents are approaching $1,000 a month. According to Yardi, the best apartment prices in central Ohio are in North Linden, where the average rent is $956 a month, followed by the Far South Side ($960), Whitehall ($974) and the Southwest Side ($998).

Central Ohio renters on a tighter budget who are used to finding places for $700 or $800 a month are finding the pickings increasingly thin.

Judy Winston has been living with family in North Linden for six months while looking for a place to rent for around $700 or $750 a month.

“I can’t find anything in that range — nothing,” said Winston, who relies largely on federal Supplemental Security Income. “Everything is $1,100 or $1,200.”

Josh Brooks spent 10 months searching for a place in a similar price range before finally finding a spot he’s happy with in a Karl Road apartment complex.

“I tried Facebook, I tried Zillow and Apartments.com. I tried a site called Roomies.com,” said Brooks, a recent Ohio State University graduate.

“The last thing I tried was Google maps. I opened it up, typed in ‘apartments,’ scrolled around and found apartments. If they had a website, I opened it up, I didn’t care where. I checked all parts of the city — north, south, east and west.”

On the other end of the scale, apartments in the priciest parts of the Columbus area are topping $1,600 a month on average, according to Yardi: Columbus' Victorian Village ($1,823), New Albany ($1,687), Grandview Heights ($1,678) and Powell ($1,658).

Some good news for renters: the average Columbus rent of $1,298 is well below the national average of $1,709 and the pace of rent hikes in Columbus has declined from double-digits two years ago. Average Columbus rents even declined a bit at the end of the year, said Rob Vogt, a partner in the Columbus-based apartment consultant service VSI.

Still, Columbus rents are rising much higher than last year's national average of 0.3%, and show no sign of stopping.

Yardi forecasts rents to rise 2.4% in Columbus this year, followed by annual increases of 4% each of the following four years, turning a $1,000-a-month apartment into a $1,170-a-month apartment four years later.

Experts say Columbus rents are rising for a number of reasons, including construction failing to keep pace with demand.

Housing construction has risen the past few years, but remains well below where experts say it needs to be. Instead of building 18,000 or 19,000 homes and apartments a year to keep up, central Ohio has been building 12,000 to 13,000 residences.

A lack of new homes has pushed up apartment prices, but so have other costs, such as labor, financing and materials.

"The cost of development is through the roof," said Tré Giller, president and chief executive officer of Metro Development, one of the largest apartment builders in Columbus. "It's everything — water, sewer, sidewalks. We've been talking about this for 15 or 20 years. We've got to do something about it."

To illustrate, Giller pointed to two of the company's recent apartment projects, both in Delaware County: Seattle House, in Delaware itself, which opened in 2020, and Ravines at Meadow Ridge, in Sunbury, which Metro started last year. In the three years or so between the projects, which are very similar, the cost per apartment rose 46%, Giller said.

"Rents are a function of the market and costs," he said. "We saw tremendous increases in costs from 2020 to 2023."

More: Latest of more than 1,000 new apartments opens near East 5th Avenue in Italian Village.

Vogt expects Columbus-area rents to continue rising this year, at a modest pace, with one exception.

"The suburban market continues to remain robust, very strong," he said. "But vacancy rates are skyrocketing Downtown with all the new product coming on."

Vogt said about 11% of Downtown apartments are empty, the highest rate in a decade and more than twice Yardi's estimate of 5% for all of central Ohio.

With a string of new places opening, both in the core of Downtown and across the river in Franklinton, renters can find deals Downtown as landlords seek to fill up the buildings. The sweeteners can includer one or two months free rent in some newly opened buildings, including Preston Centre on East Broad Street, One at the Peninsula next to COSI, and the latest phase of Gravity on West Broad Street.

"I do see some real dark clouds on the horizon Downtown," Vogt said.

Elsewhere in Columbus and central Ohio, though, Vogt expects rents to continue to climb as long as construction lags.

For some renters, enough is enough.

The Powell-area apartment that TJ Huddleston and his wife rented rose from $900 to $1,200 a month in three years, prompting the couple to search for another apartment. Every two-bedroom apartment they found that they liked in the area was $1,600 to $2,000 a month, leading to a radical decision.

"About halfway through the search, I started to do the math and figured we could buy a house," Huddleston said.

Last year, the couple found a house in Reynoldsburg that kept total monthly payments, including mortgage, taxes and insurance, under $1,500.

"There are definitely cheaper apartments out there, but it's a grab bag," Huddleston said. "And it's nice to know we don’t have to worry about the apartment search — the most dreadful time of the year."

jweiker@dispatch.com

@JimWeiker

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus-area apartment rent increases among highest in nation