Central Georgia News

Inflation pressures have consistently squeezed the wallets of Americans since early 2021, when President Joe Biden entered office.

Among the areas of rising price concerns is the cost of rent. The average price for a one-bedroom apartment nationally is $1,684, up 24.4% from a year ago, Rent.com reported. The average price for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,997, up 21.8% from a year ago. Some states are seeing even more drastic price hikes.

"In a lot of places, it costs more money even to rent than it is to own a mortgage," Nicole Bachaud, an economist at Zillow, told Fox Business.

The Georgia rental market has seen an even more significant increase in prices. There was a 36.7% rise in the state's one-bedroom rent prices, Rent.com reported. With a 38.7% increase, Augusta is No. 5 on the site's list of cities that have seen the steepest climbs in two-bedroom rent prices over the course of a year.

Rent prices for single-family homes increased by 12.6% compared to 2021, CoreLogic reported. This is a big change from the same time in 2021 compared to the year prior, which was a growth of 3.9%.

"Single-family rent growth extended its record-breaking price growth streak to 10 consecutive months in January," Molly Boesel, principal economist at CoreLogic, said in a press release.

Rent prices are likely to climb even higher in 2022, Fox Business reported. For some Americans, the soaring cost of living has left them unable to afford rent, leaving them no choice but to move out.

U.S. lawmakers are looking to implement rent-control measures, which would limit landlords to rent increases of 2-10%, The Wall Street Journal reported.

"Rents are exploding at a pace far faster than income," Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, an economist and professor at Columbia Business School, told the Journal.

Biden intends to help make rent more affordable by providing vouchers via Section 8 to those who pay at least 30% of their income on housing, the Foundation for Economic Education reported.

"The intention of this policy is that it will free up funds that renters can later use to save and one day use as a down payment for their own home," the Foundation for Economic Education reported. "One likely unintended result of this policy is that landlords will raise rents without the renter feeling the pain of the increase because the faceless taxpayer will pick up the difference."