PROVIDENCE – People in the Providence metropolitan area spent an estimated $2.4 billion on rent in 2019, a 2% increase year over year, Zillow said in a report released on Thursday.
The increase was slower than the 2.9% increase nationally year over year. American renters spent $512.4 billion on housing for the year. Spending on rent nationally increased 46.5% over the decade from 2009 to 2019, according to the report.
In the Providence area, spending on rent increased 31.9% in that time.
The report also included figures from the nearby Boston and Hartford, Conn. metro areas.
In Boston, renters spent $11.3 billion on rent in 2019, a 1.4% increase year over year. Over the decade, rent spending in the Boston metro increased 48.7%.
In Hartford, rent spending declined 1.5% year over year to $1.8 billion. Rent spending increased 38.8% over the decade in the metro area.
“While the total amount of rent paid has increased each year this decade, that trend is by no means immutable,” Zillow Group Economist Joshua Clark said in the report. “With rental appreciation expected to decrease in the coming year and a homeownership rate that has been ticking up over the past few years, a small or even negative change in total rental spending could be in the cards in the early 2020s.”
The full report is available online.
