Prov.-area rents had 3rd-lowest increase among top 50 metros

PROVIDENCE – Rents in the Providence area increased 2.5 percent in 2014, representing the third-lowest increase in the top 50 metropolitan areas surveyed by real estate website Zillow.

The data, which was released Tuesday, showed that the 241,000 renters in the Providence metropolitan area spent $2.25 billion on rent this year, compared with 236,000 renters who spent $2.194 billion in 2013.

The lowest rent increase was reported in Salt Lake City, at 1.6 percent, followed by Washington, D.C., at 2.1 percent.

The highest rent increase was in San Jose, Calif., at 14.4 percent, followed by San Francisco, Calif., at 13.5 percent.

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Boston rents rose 6.9 percent year-over-year to $9.8 billion. There were 684,000 renter households this year in Boston, compared with 672,000 last year.

America’s 41 million renter households spent $441 billion on rent in 2014, an increase of 4.9 percent from 2013 due to rising rents and a growing renter population, according to Zillow.
“This makes America’s rental expenditures roughly similar in size to the total economic output of North Carolina and about double what Americans spent on new cars,” Zillow said.
New York-Northern New Jersey area renters spent nearly $50 billion on rent in 2014, about 11 of every 100 rent dollars spent in the United States despite being home to only eight out of 100 renters nationwide. Los Angeles area renters came in a distant second, spending $34 billion on rent (about 8 percent of the national total), followed by San Francisco ($15 billion, or 3 percent), Chicago ($14 billion, or 3 percent) and Washington, D.C. ($13 billion, or 3 percent).

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