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M REPORT | 47 O R I G I NAT I O N S E R V I C I N G DATA G O V E R N M E N T S E C O N DA R Y M A R K E T THE LATEST DATA U.S. Sees Biggest Rent Jump in Two Years The biggest reported increases were found in Austin, where rents surged 40% from a year earlier during the pandemic. A verage monthly listed rents in the U.S. increased 14.1% year over year to $1,877 in December, according to a new report from Redfin, marking the largest annual jump since at least February 2019 when Redfin began recording this data. And while rents jumped, the national monthly mortgage pay- ment for homebuyers climbed 21.6% year over year, also the big- gest increase in Redfin's records. "The growth in mortgage payments has been driven by both climbing prices and climb- ing mortgage rates," Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather said. "Those rising mortgage costs push more potential homebuyers into renting instead, which pushes up demand and prices for rentals. Mortgage rate increases are ac- celerating, which will cause both mortgage payments and rent to grow throughout 2022." The 10 metro areas with the biggest increases in rent prices found themselves up 29% year over year or more, and they were almost exclusively on the East Coast. The only exceptions were Austin, Texas, and Portland, Oregon. The top 10 metros reporting the fastest-rising rents year over year were: • Austin, Texas (40%) • Nassau County, New York (35%) • New York, New York (35%) • Newark, New Jersey (35%) • New Brunswick, New Jersey (35%) • Miami, Florida (34%) • West Palm Beach, Florida (34%) • Fort Lauderdale, Florida (34%) • Jacksonville, Florida (31%) • Portland, Oregon (29%) Rents are up more than 30% in major metro areas, while rent price increases outpaced year- over-year mortgage payment increases for new homebuyers in just 16 of the 50 largest U.S. metro areas in December 2021. Only one metro area saw rents fall in December from the same month a year earlier—Kansas City, Missouri, where rents declined 0.8%. AUSTIN, TEXAS