Rental prices and supply

Though apartment construction surged in the years after the housing bust, demand for rental housing has grown even more. The rental vacancy rate fell last year to 6.9 percent, a threedecade low, according to the Harvard report. That’s the seventh straight annual decline.

Much of the apartment construction in recent years has been made up of luxury developments catering to affluent renters rather than to households of modest means.

The number of rental units available for under $800 fell by 261,000 between 2005 and 2015, according to the report. By comparison, the number of units for $2,000 or more climbed by 1.5 million in the same period.