The 2021 rental season kicked off twice as strong as usual, with Gen Z and high-earning Millennials being the most active apartment hunters. In particular, New York City and San Francisco saw an astounding interest in apartments during the first half of 2021.<\/p>\n
Renting activity is back to pre-pandemic levels — up 13% in the first half of 2021 compared to the same time last year — and two groups of people are primarily responsible for it. Specifically, our analysis of nationwide rental applications by age groups showed that the main players who propelled this renewed activity were Zoomers<\/a>, who accounted for the largest increase in applications for apartments — 39% compared to the year prior — most of whom were entering the rental market for the first time. When we consider renters by income, those who earned upwards of $100,000 were the most active this year, with 34% more than last year.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, interest in big-city apartments is surging and rental applications rose in all of the nation\u2019s 30 largest cities. New York City saw the most spectacular comeback, leading the trend, with double its rental activity compared to last year, while San Francisco had the second-highest increase in renters moving in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So, to see the complete picture of what renting looks like in the aftermath of the pandemic, we extracted in-depth market and demographic insights by analyzing 2.5 million nationwide renter applications from RentGrow.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Renters are on the move again and, this year, they took the apartment market by storm. In fact, the peak renting season started out twice as strong as usual, with 45% more renters applying for apartments in March than in February. By comparison, during the same time period in 2018 and 2019, applications rose by an average of just 23%.<\/span><\/p>\nRental Season Kicks-off with a Bang\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n