It's even harder to find an apartment in Syracuse than in the New York City area — and it's a sign the housing crisis is far from over

• Rental housing markets across the country have become increasingly unaffordable and competitive.
• A severe shortage of apartments is the major culprit.
• Syracuse, New York is the most competitive rental market in the US, according to a new report.

It's widely known that coastal regions like the New York City metro and the San Francisco Bay area have some of the most expensive and competitive housing markets in the country. These cities have made headlines as prospective tenants and buyers flood open houses, while rents and home prices skyrocket.

But housing markets across the country, even in places that were long affordable, aren't building enough new housing and have severe home shortages. Things tend to be worse for renters, whose median net worth is one-fortieth the median homeowner's. Aside from the cost of housing, being able to land a home in the first place is also key. And that's become difficult even outside of traditionally pricy markets.

The Syracuse, New York, metro area was the most competitive rental market in the country in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to a new report by ApartmentAdvisor, an apartment listing and data site. The Greensboro-High Point area in North Carolina was also more competitive than the New York City area, which ranked as the third most competitive market. Two housing markets in Ohio — Toledo and Dayton — also made the top 10. The Boston metro area and the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, Connecticut, area ranked eighth and ninth, respectively.

When it comes to northern California, the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area in the South Bay ranked sixth, while the San Francisco-Oakland market ranked 22nd on the competitiveness ranking.

The ranking, which studied 75 of the largest metro areas in the US, considered the market's rental vacancy rate, the average time an apartment spent on the market, and the median cost per square foot. The study also looked at how much competition and costs had changed since 2022, all based on data gathered by the US Census and ApartmentAdvisor.

In Syracuse, for example, more than half of renters in the city spend 30% or more of their income on housing, making them rent-burdened. The median rent for a two-bedroom apartment rose almost 16% between January 2022 and January 2023. The upstate city, like many others, just doesn't have enough homes. And renters are staying put — the city had the highest rate of lease renewal among the country's largest 150 apartment markets, RealPage found in September 2023.