Milwaukee’s apartment market was the third-most competitive in the nation in 2023, according to a report from Santa Barbara, California-based
RentCafe.
RentCafe is a nationwide apartment listing service and is part of Yardi Systems, a global provider of property management software.
Only Miami and northern New Jersey had more competitive apartment rental markets that Milwaukee in 2023, according to the RentCafe report.
For the apartment market competitiveness report, RentCafe analyzed the 139 largest markets in the U.S. where data was available and ranked them based on five key metrics when it comes to rental competitiveness. Those metrics were: the number of days apartments stayed vacant; the percentage of rentals that were occupied; the number of prospective renters competing for an apartment; the percentage of renters who renewed their leases; the share of apartments completed this year.
RentCafe uses those metrics to calculate a Rental Competitivity Index (RCI) to see how competitive the U.S. rental market was this year. The national RCI score was 59.5 in 2023.
By comparison, the Milwaukee rental apartment market Rental Competitivity Index in 2023 was 113, which only trailed Miami-Dade County, Florida with an RCI of 122 and North Jersey, New Jersey with an RCI of 116.
According to the report, apartments in the Milwaukee market were vacant for an average of 33 days in 2023. The market’s apartments had an occupancy rate of 95.8%.
About 94% of the rental apartments nationwide were occupied, according to the RentCafe report, down from 95.3% at the end of 2022.
“With less than 5% of its apartments available at any given time and a staggering 69.6% of the current renters choosing to stay put, those looking for rental apartments in Milwaukee found themselves in a tight spot in 2023,” the RentCafe report said. “Even though the local supply of housing has grown by 2.91% since January, the demand is so high that most apartments only stay on the market for 33 days, with 14 renters competing for each available unit.”
The Milwaukee apartment market’s RCI of 113 in 2023 was up from 103 in 2022, according to the RentCafe report.
For small apartment rental markets ranked separately by RentCafe, Madison ranked at the 7
th most competitive small rental market in the U.S., with a RCI of 111. Apartments in the Madison market were vacant for an average of 22 days and the market’s apartment occupancy rate was 96.3% in 2023, according to the report.
