While rent growth for apartments has slowed from its peak during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new report from real estate data company CoStar shows apartments in much of the country are still getting more expensive.
And Hampton Roads is near the top of the list.
The report stated that the region, identified as the Norfolk metro area, experienced a 2.7% increase in apartment rents between July 2024 and July 2025. That’s the same rate as Pittsburgh, and behind only San Francisco, Chicago and San Jose, California.
Hampton Roads has landed near the top of similar lists for several years. This time last year, Zillow released numbers showing the region is in the top 10 metro areas for rental prices overall.
Developers, groups and elected leaders in the region have proposed plans to boost residential development, aiming to tackle housing affordability by increasing supply. Norfolk’s even been selling small city-owned lots to get more homes built.
However, simply building more housing isn’t a solution to affordability for those with lower incomes, experts have said.
A housing study released by the city of Norfolk in 2024 found that rents haven’t dropped in the city even as thousands of new rental units come online.
Affordability is an issue across Virginia, but efforts to address problems via legislation have faced headwinds in the General Assembly.
A 2021 study from the state’s legislative audit commission cited a shortage of 200,000 affordable housing units in Virginia.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced late last year that the state would spend $75 million to build workforce housing in conjunction with economic development efforts, ensuring housing for workers as the state seeks to attract jobs.
Affording housing is more challenging in Hampton Roads than anywhere else in the state because of the disparity between average pay and average housing costs. Rents are higher in Northern Virginia, for instance, but the difference between earnings and costs is much lower because of higher salaries.
A housing study in Virginia Beach found that those working many of the city’s most common jobs can’t afford to live in the city.
