"We've endured hard markets due to a combination of extreme weather events and inflationary conditions before and, unfortunately, will again," Rick McCathron, president and chief executive of Hippo, a home-insurance company, told MarketWatch.
A hard market is where premiums become more expensive, but insurance is harder to obtain. With several insurers pulling out of states like California and Florida, homeowners in those states are finding it harder to obtain affordable homeowners insurance.
But insurance price hikes in 2025 may not be as dramatic as they were in prior years, as the industry adjusts. "Consumers may still see rate increases in 2025, but not to the extent they saw over the last two years," McCathron said, "as we all benefit from falling interest rates and a growing economy."
Read more: Where home-insurance costs are rising the fastest in the U.S. - it's not California or Florida
Will rents go up in 2025?
Rent prices are expected to stay stable next year.
Though wage growth has yet to catch up to the increase in rent prices, affordability for renters should improve in the coming months, Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at real-estate platform Zillow (Z), told MarketWatch.
"Absent a recession, wage growth should continue to outpace rent growth," he explained, particularly as a record number of housing units are under construction, which should increase the supply of rentals available.
Renters in the Sun Belt might see more deals on rentals. In October Zillow found that rents fell year-over-year in Austin and San Antonio, Texas, and barely increased in Dallas; Raleigh, N.C.; and Phoenix.
On the other hand, rents rose the most in October in Hartford, Conn.; Cleveland; and Louisville - all more than 6% from a year ago.
High interest rates are causing people to delay buying a home, according to Divounguy. In 2021, the median age of a renter in the U.S. was 33. In 2024, that renter is typically 42, he said.
Renters on the hunt for a new lease are also more likely to see good deals on apartment leases than with single-family units. "Rent growth was just 2.3% higher than a year ago for multi-family units," Divounguy said, "and that slowdown is continuing." Rent growth for single-family units, on the other hand, was 4.3% in October.
"People are waiting in the wings for housing affordability to improve," Divounguy said, by renting a single-family unit.
But there aren't enough single-family rentals to meet demand, which could push rents on those homes up, David Howard, chief executive of the National Rental Home Council, told MarketWatch.
Investors want to build more single-family rentals and more housing generally, but high rates are keeping a lid on activity, he added, which could increase prices.
But under the next Trump administration, renters could also see fewer protections against landlord practices that can cost tenants extra money, like imposing junk fees, one advocate warned.
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