Rental affordability is on the rise, according to a June 18 Zillow report, which stated that 74 percent of America’s apartment rentals were affordable for a median-income household in May.
An analysis by the nation’s leading real estate and rental marketplace shows that last month had the highest share of affordable units ever recorded for May. To be considered affordable, a median-income household would spend no more than 30 percent of its income on rent.
The national median monthly rent across all property types was $1,951 in May, according to the analysis. Using the 30 percent formula, a household would need to earn about $6,500 a month before taxes for that rent to be affordable. In San Jose, California, the median rent was $3,625—the highest in the country. A household there would need to earn just over $12,000 per month for that price to be considered affordable.
At the same time, the share of Zillow rental listings priced below $1,000 per month reached 8.8 percent in May, the highest level since May 2022. Apartment seekers in Oklahoma City saw the largest share of rentals under $1,000.
The report noted that following record-setting rent hikes during the COVID-19 pandemic, prices subsided due to a multi-family construction boom that reached a 50-year high in 2024. During that time, builders were able to take advantage of the lower mortgage interest rates to construct more housing.
“More supply on the market means more choices, and more choices mean landlords have to compete on price and incentives,” Zillow senior economist Kara Ng said in the report. “The combination of cooling rents and rising incomes has quietly moved the affordability needle in a meaningful way.”
Nationwide, rent prices saw just a 2 percent, or $39, year-over-year uptick in May. Still, Ng cautions that the construction boom has since slowed, signaling that rental growth could spike again in the months ahead.
The multi-family rental market saw the most gains in affordability, with 79.4 percent of May listings attainable for a median-income household—up from 75.5 percent in May 2025. Nearly half of single-family rental listings—47.3 percent—were also deemed affordable in May—up from 44.9 percent in the same month last year.
Raleigh, North Carolina, took the top spot as the nation’s most affordable major metro, with 94.8 percent of listings in May within financial reach of median-income households. In Austin, Texas, 91 percent of listings fell into the affordable category, followed by Louisville, Kentucky, at 90.5 percent, Salt Lake City at 90.2 percent, and Portland, Oregon, at 89.3 percent.
Zillow also noted that nearly 40 percent of its rental listings offered some type of concession in May.
