Cambridge, Mass. — Rental prices in Maryland and nationally are showing signs of cooling after post-pandemic growth, yet affordability challenges for Maryland renters have reached historic highs, according to a new report from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.
The center’s America’s Rental Housing 2026 report, released March 12, 2026, found that national rental increases hovered near zero after years of growth. At professionally managed apartment complexes, asking rents declined by a little more than half a percent. Vacancy rates ticked up as demand slowed faster than new supply arrived.
Despite the modest easing in new lease prices, the number of cost-burdened renter households — those spending more than 30 percent of income on rent and utilities — hit another record high of 22.7 million nationwide in 2024. This figure includes millions more than in 2019 or 2001, with burdens extending to higher-income households.
Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Housing Studies, said affordability challenges among Maryland renters stand at historic highs.
“So we are certainly seeing a bit of a slowdown in demand, seeing rents coming down especially in markets where there was a lot of new construction,” she said. “But at the same time, we’re going into these conditions with really, really challenging affordability circumstances. We’re now at a record high number of renter households who are experiencing cost burden.”
In Maryland, renters paid about 25 percent of their income toward rent in 2001. That share has risen to more than 31 percent. The report notes that since 2001, Maryland renter incomes have grown only 4 percent in real terms while rents have outpaced income growth over decades.
Airgood-Obrycki said a slight decrease in rent costs for one year does not offset the long-term gap.
“Rents are rising faster than incomes over the last couple of decades,” she said, “and so that’s part of why we’re seeing such widespread affordability challenges and such widespread cost burdens across the country too. We’ve had two big periods of rent increase — the Great Recession and then the pandemic — and in both of those periods incomes really lagged. We just have this growing gap.”
Southern Maryland counties face particular pressures. In Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s counties, limited rental stock near employment centers in Leonardtown, Prince Frederick and Waldorf combines with growing demand from military families, federal workers and young professionals. Recent county actions, such as St. Mary’s County Commissioners approving priority childcare enrollment for first responders at a new YMCA facility on April 14, 2026, reflect efforts to retain essential workers amid high housing costs.
Local data shows median rents in the region often exceed what lower- and middle-income households can sustain without cutting other necessities. The Harvard report highlights that cost burdens are moving up the income scale, with nearly half of renters earning $45,000 to $74,999 now affected nationwide.
Maryland has responded with initiatives including mixed-income and social housing models. Montgomery County’s $100 million revolving construction loan fund aims to finance at least 6,000 new mixed-income units, serving as one example of state and local innovation.
The report also notes broader national trends: multifamily construction is cooling after a peak, with 416,000 units started in 2025 compared to 547,000 in 2022. Higher construction costs and the presence of higher-income households in the rental market contribute to an upward shift in the overall rent distribution despite recent softening.
In Southern Maryland, where volunteer fire departments and public safety personnel handle both structure fires and wildland incidents, housing affordability directly affects recruitment and retention of first responders. The St. Mary’s County childcare priority program targets sheriff’s deputies, corrections officers, dispatchers, EMTs and paramedics to address this challenge.
The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies releases the biennial report to track rental market conditions and policy responses. Full data and interactive maps are available through the center’s website.
Southern Maryland officials continue monitoring state and federal housing assistance programs as cost burdens persist. The report underscores that short-term rent relief does not resolve structural issues built over two decades of rents rising faster than incomes.
