File photo

A new survey of rents in the nation’s biggest cities by Realtor.com shows Greater Hartford’s rents are on the rise.

The market’s September median rent of $1,550 is up 7.6 percent compared to September 2020.

The median rent for a studio was $1,220 last month. That’s up 6.1 percent over a year ago. The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment was $1,445 and up 4.4 percent year-over-year. The median rent for a two-bedroom was $1,750 and was up 9.4 percent year-over-year.

The strengthening market is helping encourage some hotel operators to convert their properties to multifamily developments in the face of continuing weakness in the hospitality sector.

“With rents continuing to surge to new highs nationwide, including in big tech hubs, September data confirms the U.S. rental market has moved past the recovery phase and is fully back in business. Rental demand remains unseasonably high, driven by still-limited housing supply, rising mortgage rates pushing buyers towards renting, and more people returning to big cities,” George Ratiu, manager of economic research for Realtor.com, said in a sstatement. “At the same time, it’s important to put recent rental activity in the context of housing trends throughout the pandemic. Rents didn’t rebound from COVID declines as quickly as for-sale home prices, but rental activity has now reached a level not unlike the homebuying frenzy seen earlier this year, before fall seasonality kicked in. The good news is that if rents continue to parallel home listing prices, rental price growth could potentially begin cooling this winter.”

The Realtor.com report shows that while many cities’ rents are on the rise, they are growing strongest in tech-focused urban areas like San Francisco and Manhattan. Rents grew by double-digits in more than half (31) of the 50 largest U.S. markets in September, led by secondary metros like Tampa, which saw rents grow 33 percent that month on a year-over-year basis.