Philly has some of the smallest new apartments in the country

Philadelphia has some of the smallest new apartments in the country, including those currently being built, according to an analysis of the 100 largest U.S. cities for renters by a nationwide rental search website.

In 2023, Philly ranked in the top 10 places with the smallest apartments built over the last decade, according to RentCafe’s report, published this week. The city’s average of 764 square feet was 100 square feet more than the average in Seattle, where new apartments were smallest. But it was roughly 410 square feet less than the average in the college town of Gainesville, Fla., where new apartments were biggest.

Future apartments in Philadelphia are trending even smaller. When it comes to apartments that are under construction, the city has the fourth smallest units. The average size is 573 square feet.

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Port St. Lucie, Fla., has the largest apartments currently being built at an average size of 1,283 square feet. Most of the cities building apartments that span an average of more than 1,000 square feet are in the Southeast.

June to August is peak rental season. And space and price, which are generally linked, are two of the biggest factors that renters consider when looking for a new home.

Renters have been wanting more space, whether that’s because they’re living with more family members or friends, they realized during the pandemic that they needed more room, or renter couples who can’t afford to buy homes right now are starting families as they continue to rent.

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Nationally, “developers are reacting to the larger configurations that are needed and building accordingly,” said Doug Ressler, manager of business intelligence at Yardi Matrix, a sister division of RentCafe.

In the country’s 100 largest renter cities, more two- and three-bedroom apartments were built in the last two years, and that slightly increased the size of the average new apartment. In 2023, the average size among these cities was 916 square feet.

Apartment developers are up against higher construction and labor costs and interest rates that can make building larger apartments less lucrative or unfeasible, Ressler said. Developers also have to consider residents’ ability to pay higher prices for more space. The largest share of apartments built last year — 48% — had one bedroom. And the recent flood of new apartments in Philadelphia have largely been studio and one-bedroom units.

The average new apartment in Philadelphia — those built within the last decade — stayed roughly the same size over the last 10 years and is about the same size as the average apartment overall in the city.

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Ressler said “a huge matrix of different variables” around demographics, the economy, apartment supply, and more play into developers’ decisions about apartment sizes.

And renters aren’t just looking for square footage. Developers also use amenities and play up locations to attract renters and compete with other properties.

RentCafe’s analysis considered apartments in professionally managed multifamily buildings with 50 units or more and looked at the 100 U.S. cities with the largest stock of these units.

To help visualize comparisons of square footage in different cities, an Inquirer graphic superimposes examples of rectangular apartments on part of a professional basketball court.

Apartment developers in denser cities such as Philadelphia generally have less space to work with, which is why more spacious places tend to have larger apartments, Ressler said.

Cities that made the list of places with the smallest apartments built over the last decade aren’t a surprise. They include New York, Washington, and San Francisco.

The average size of a new apartment in the borough of Queens in New York is 692 square feet. It’s 712 in Brooklyn and 737 in Manhattan.

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But some places’ apartments have gotten bigger. The average new apartment has grown by 73 square feet in San Francisco and by 97 square feet in Chicago over the last decade. Differences of at least 60 square feet are considered statistically significant, Ressler said.

For comparison, the average new apartment size grew by nearly 200 square feet in Gainesville, where units built in the last decade are the largest at 1,173 square feet.

San Jose, Calif., has the smallest apartments currently being built at an average of 423 square feet.