Data Point: 2024-10-29, Revisting The ZORI
The ZORI is the Zillow Observed Rent Index from, you guessed it, Zillow, Zillow provides a variety of data at their Data page. We periodically check in on the ZORI to see what it says about rents in Grand Rapids.
Zillow's definition of the ZORI: "A smoothed measure of the typical observed market rate rent across a given region. ZORI is a repeat-rent index that is weighted to the rental housing stock to ensure representativeness across the entire market, not just those homes currently listed for-rent. The index is dollar-denominated by computing the mean of listed rents that fall into the 40th to 60th percentile range for all homes and apartments in a given region, which is once again weighted to reflect the rental housing stock. Details available in ZORI methodology."
And, the graph:
The bold yellow line in the trend line, and the red line the reported values. Remarkably consistent.
September to September rent increases:
| 2015-09 | 2016-09 | 2017-09 | 2018-09 | 2019-09 | 2020-09 | 2021-09 | 2022-09 | 2023-09 | 2024-09 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $855 | $922 | $983 | $1040 | $1087 | $1142 | $1277 | $1405 | $1463 | $1534 |
| +$67 | +$60 | +$58 | +$47 | +$55 | +$135 | +$128 | +$58 | +$71 | |
| +7.81% | +6.56% | +5.87% | +4.47% | +5.07% | +11.86% | +10.01% | +4.11% | +4.84% |
The increases have tapered off from the nearly 12% of 2021. However, that is a cumulative change of $849/mo; meaning our median renter is paying $8,142 more annually, for just housing, than they were paying in 2016.
It is hella past time for the city to stop talking [and talking, and talking] about the "housing crisis" and deliver substantive policy. Engagement Fatigue is real, they have gathered data, had meetings, gathered some more data, had more meetings, they have everything they need to do something. At this point I will fault no one who calls them out for using engagement and research as nothing other than a stall tactic. We need leadership.