Welcome to the September 2018 Columbia Rent Report. Columbia rents increased over the past month. In this report, we'll evaluate trends in the Columbia rental market, including comparisons to cities throughout the state and nation.
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Welcome to the September 2018 Columbia Rent Report. Columbia rents increased over the past month. In this report, we'll evaluate trends in the Columbia rental market, including comparisons to cities throughout the state and nation.
Columbia rents have increased 0.4% over the past month, but have been relatively flat at 0.3% in comparison to the same time last year. Currently, median rents in Columbia stand at $840 for a one-bedroom apartment and $970 for a two-bedroom. This is the fourth straight month that the city has seen rent increases after a decline in April. Columbia's year-over-year rent growth lags the state and national averages, which both stand at 1.0%.
Throughout the past year, rents have remained steady in the city of Columbia, but other cities across the entire state have seen rents increase. Of the largest 10 cities that we have data for in South Carolina, 9 of them have seen prices rise. The state as a whole logged rent growth of 1.0% over the past year. Here's a look at how rents compare across some of the largest cities in the state.
Rent growth in Columbia has been relatively stable over the past year - some other large cities have seen more substantial increases; in contrast, rents in a few cities have actually declined. Columbia is still more affordable than most large cities across the country.
Data from private listing sites, including our own, tends to skew toward luxury apartments, which introduces sample bias when estimates are calculated directly from these listings. To address these limitations, we’ve recently made major updates to our methodology, which we believe have greatly improved the accuracy and reliability of our estimates.
Read more about our new methodology below, or see a more detailed post here.
Apartment List is committed to making our rent estimates the best and most accurate available. To do this, we start with reliable median rent statistics from the Census Bureau, then extrapolate them forward to the current month using a growth rate calculated from our listing data. In doing so, we use a same-unit analysis similar to Case-Shiller’s approach, comparing only units that are available across both time periods to provide an accurate picture of rent growth in cities across the country.
Our approach corrects for the sample bias inherent in other private sources, producing results that are much closer to statistics published by the Census Bureau and HUD. Our methodology also allows us to construct a picture of rent growth over an extended period of time, with estimates that are updated each month.
Read more about our methodology here.
Apartment List publishes monthly reports on rental trends for hundreds of cities across the U.S. We intend these reports to be a source of reliable information that help renters and policymakers make sound decisions, and we invest significant time and effort in gathering and analyzing rent data. Our work is covered regularly by journalists across the country.
We are continuously working to improve our methodology and data, with the goal of providing renters with the information that they need to make the best decisions.
