Much attention has been paid to the high price of housing in Arlington, where the median sales price for a new home currently sits at about $1.4 million. Rents have increased as well. As of February, rental rates were up more than 12% over the previous year, averaging $2,591 per month, new data shows.
In fact, Arlington saw the most significant rent spike in the DMV, according to Redfin. Bethesda, Maryland, experienced the second biggest jump, with an 11% increase over the past 12 months, followed by Alexandria, where rents climbed about 6%.
In Arlington, the asking price for rental units had been falling due to an increase in new construction, the report states, but now permits for new apartment buildings are slowing.
“Rent is going up across the board,” says Rebecca Brunner, executive property manager for Arlington Realty. Building owners are contemplating “anywhere from a 3%—on the low end—to a 5% increase this summer, just to keep up with taxes and increases to HOA fees,” she says. “Just for them to be able to not be underwater.”
Rick Cutrera, founder of The Five Points Group, an Arlington-based property management company, says the biggest issue is a lack of supply.
Multifamily construction has slowed countywide over the past two years. In 2021, Arlington County approved an average of 13 new apartment units for every 1,000 people, compared with only new unit per 1,000 people in 2024, according to Redfin.
Cutrera says the base formula for calculating rent in Arlington is currently about $1,000 per room. “That’s the general plug-in number,” he says. “Now, if they’ve done renovations where they made the kitchen nice, they have a great back patio, they have a garage or off-street parking—that all adds up and it could go easily into the $1,200 and $1,300 per room, per month.”
Competition for leases remains fierce. Cutrera says he’s seen property owners raise rents by as much as $500 per month and still find renters easily. High mortgage interest rates have kept would-be first-time homebuyers from moving out of the rental market. At the same time, many homeowners are holding out for lower interest rates before selling. Apartment turnover has slowed as a result.
The bottom line: “More people are staying in the rental market,” Cutrera says. “They’re not transitioning to the sales market.”
Currently the average interest rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage is 6.68%, according to Bankrate. That’s down slightly from the fall, but still much higher than 2020 and 2021 during the Covid pandemic, when mortgage interest rates fell below 3%.
The spike in asking rent also comes as federal workers, who make up a significant portion of the local workforce, face ongoing uncertainty amid return-to-office mandates and job cuts across multiple agencies.
Brunner says her company is already seeing the effects.
“We had a woman who called us in desperation, actually two days before Valentine’s Day. She said, ‘My landlord just called me and said that she has to return back to work in person, which means she can’t live at Rehoboth Beach anymore. So we have to be out of her house in two weeks.’”
In other cases, renters who have suddenly lost jobs are finding themselves unable to pay the rent on leased homes or apartments. Some are moving elsewhere.
Brunner says Arlington Realty is letting tenants whose jobs have been eliminated out of their leases with no penalty, as long as the property owner agrees. “But they have to find a replacement tenant,” she says. “We’re running a business here. We’re not in the business of not making money. However, we are human beings and a family-owned company. We will not charge them for rewriting the lease.”
Redfin says it’s too early to tell how current market conditions will impact rents in the long run.
“The District is always in transition, especially when a new administration takes office,” observes Sheharyar Bokhari, a senior economist at Redfin, “with people moving in and out of the city for both government and private sector work opportunities. Rents will be impacted if laid-off workers move away in droves, but also by workers who want to live closer to where they work, now they are required to be in the office.”
Cutrera says his company has yet to see the effects of government layoffs in the rental landscape. “In fact, the candidates are really still super strong. They’ve got good credit scores, good job stability,” he says. “These dynamic conditions—new administration, new rules, job changes—are making for a very interesting mix. Rentals have stayed steady where [home] sales have been waffling. You can see the cover coming off of sales a little bit.”
For tenants who suddenly find themselves in financial straights, Brunner suggests reaching out to their property manager.
“A lot of people know they’re in this contract and that they’re not going to be able to get out. So, they just kind of freeze and they don’t know what to do,” she says. “Reach out to your management company, reach out to your landlord, explain the situation, and see if you can come up with an amicable compromise.”