Consumer prices rose 0.2% in August as annual inflation rate hits lowest since early 2021

[BumRushDaShow]

10. With respect to housing (rentals)

and I haven't dug in to see if there are categories of rentals, but there may really be a big difference between NEW tenant rental prices versus existing tenant lease RENEWAL prices (for the equivalent units).

I.e., it is rare for any landlords/property managers (at least "commercial" ones) to hold or reduce their lease prices for existing tenants unless they have some kind of "special discount" for a longer lease renewal term.

More often than not, they insist on doing some kind of increase every year (claiming "inflation" or "property tax increases" or "utility service increases", etc), whereas they may advertise a "reduced" / "introductory" lease prices for new tenants only, and anyone who takes advantage, would have that lower price (at least for the first year). Meanwhile the identical unit next to them continues to pay far more.

There is another thing that is also underlying rentals and unfortunately, I don't know how much of it is going on to make a significant impact on the total data... BUT, with the amount of wildfire and storm-related damage that has happened over recent years (excessively in some cases), the use of "short term" rentals for displaced residents impacted by that, which inevitably cost MORE per month than typical for 1 year leases, might be factoring in a little bit.

So I don't know if that distinction is being made in the data as it could explain some of the contradictions.