The Best and Worst Times To Rent an Apartment in 7 U.S. Cities

When you’re apartment-hunting in a major city, knowing when to look is just as important as where you look. Rents in cities across the United States fluctuate from month to month, and you can end up paying hundreds of dollars more in rent just by choosing the wrong month to sign a lease. Fortunately, the apartment rental search engine RentHop has compiled data on monthly rent fluctuations in major cities across the United States.

In the video above, Business Insider has compiled and simplified RentHop’s findings, identifying the best and worst month to rent an apartment in each of seven cities. The video includes results for Los Angeles, Phoenix, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City.

While the results for each city vary a bit, in general, RentHop identifies an easily observable trend: If you’re planning on moving, you’ll find the lowest price in the winter. While actual rents vary wildly from city to city, the data shows that the cheapest rents, across the board, can be found in January and February. Summer and early fall, meanwhile, have the worst prices—a phenomenon RentHop attributes to the influx of recent college graduates looking for housing, as well as the perceived preferability of a summertime move.

[h/t Business Insider]

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