{
  "title": "Rent / Return",
  "description": "U.S. rent prices and real-estate industry profits, 1998\u20132024.",
  "baseline": {
    "year": 1998,
    "value": 100,
    "rentCpi": 172.09166666666667,
    "profitMillions": 6973.0
  },
  "timeRange": [
    1998,
    2024
  ],
  "rows": [
    {
      "year": 1998,
      "rentCpi": 172.09166666666667,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 6973.0,
      "rentIndex": 100.0,
      "profitIndex": 100.0
    },
    {
      "year": 1999,
      "rentCpi": 177.475,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 6893.0,
      "rentIndex": 103.12817781221248,
      "profitIndex": 98.85271762512548
    },
    {
      "year": 2000,
      "rentCpi": 183.92499999999998,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 6461.0,
      "rentIndex": 106.87618033025035,
      "profitIndex": 92.6573928008031
    },
    {
      "year": 2001,
      "rentCpi": 192.10833333333335,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 5009.0,
      "rentIndex": 111.63139799525447,
      "profitIndex": 71.83421769683063
    },
    {
      "year": 2002,
      "rentCpi": 199.66666666666666,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 10227.0,
      "rentIndex": 116.02343712168901,
      "profitIndex": 146.66571059802095
    },
    {
      "year": 2003,
      "rentCpi": 205.51666666666665,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 11968.0,
      "rentIndex": 119.4227882427001,
      "profitIndex": 171.63344328122758
    },
    {
      "year": 2004,
      "rentCpi": 211.01666666666665,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 17304.0,
      "rentIndex": 122.61875938211224,
      "profitIndex": 248.15717768535782
    },
    {
      "year": 2005,
      "rentCpi": 217.34166666666667,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 36547.0,
      "rentIndex": 126.29412619243621,
      "profitIndex": 524.1216119317368
    },
    {
      "year": 2006,
      "rentCpi": 225.1,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 35173.0,
      "rentIndex": 130.80238245121302,
      "profitIndex": 504.4170371432669
    },
    {
      "year": 2007,
      "rentCpi": 234.68466666666666,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 27567.0,
      "rentIndex": 136.37189482349524,
      "profitIndex": 395.33916535207226
    },
    {
      "year": 2008,
      "rentCpi": 243.27583333333334,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 19689.0,
      "rentIndex": 141.36409859086726,
      "profitIndex": 282.36053348630435
    },
    {
      "year": 2009,
      "rentCpi": 248.81183333333334,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 18868.0,
      "rentIndex": 144.58098881410103,
      "profitIndex": 270.5865481141546
    },
    {
      "year": 2010,
      "rentCpi": 249.38308333333336,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 23887.0,
      "rentIndex": 144.91293399835362,
      "profitIndex": 342.56417610784456
    },
    {
      "year": 2011,
      "rentCpi": 253.63391666666666,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 16235.0,
      "rentIndex": 147.38303229867802,
      "profitIndex": 232.82661695109707
    },
    {
      "year": 2012,
      "rentCpi": 260.3605833333333,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 40314.0,
      "rentIndex": 151.29180184978935,
      "profitIndex": 578.1442707586405
    },
    {
      "year": 2013,
      "rentCpi": 267.71575,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 46997.0,
      "rentIndex": 155.56578373928625,
      "profitIndex": 673.9853721497203
    },
    {
      "year": 2014,
      "rentCpi": 276.15633333333335,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 55142.0,
      "rentIndex": 160.4704856907656,
      "profitIndex": 790.793058941632
    },
    {
      "year": 2015,
      "rentCpi": 286.027,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 59940.0,
      "rentIndex": 166.2061885622972,
      "profitIndex": 859.601319374731
    },
    {
      "year": 2016,
      "rentCpi": 296.81891666666667,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 64024.0,
      "rentIndex": 172.47721659968042,
      "profitIndex": 918.1700846120751
    },
    {
      "year": 2017,
      "rentCpi": 308.144,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 59535.0,
      "rentIndex": 179.05806014236597,
      "profitIndex": 853.7932023519289
    },
    {
      "year": 2018,
      "rentCpi": 319.28866666666664,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 48356.0,
      "rentIndex": 185.5340661469178,
      "profitIndex": 693.4748314929012
    },
    {
      "year": 2019,
      "rentCpi": 331.12675,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 37541.0,
      "rentIndex": 192.4130066340613,
      "profitIndex": 538.3765954395526
    },
    {
      "year": 2020,
      "rentCpi": 341.4703333333334,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 54386.0,
      "rentIndex": 198.42351459977726,
      "profitIndex": 779.9512404990678
    },
    {
      "year": 2021,
      "rentCpi": 349.1359166666667,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 73032.0,
      "rentIndex": 202.87787516343036,
      "profitIndex": 1047.3540800229455
    },
    {
      "year": 2022,
      "rentCpi": 370.1999166666667,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 59776.0,
      "rentIndex": 215.1178635417171,
      "profitIndex": 857.2493905062383
    },
    {
      "year": 2023,
      "rentCpi": 399.64425,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 56411.0,
      "rentIndex": 232.22754346036513,
      "profitIndex": 808.9918256130791
    },
    {
      "year": 2024,
      "rentCpi": 420.06075000000004,
      "rentMonthlyCount": 12,
      "profitMillions": 65353.0,
      "rentIndex": 244.09127887269383,
      "profitIndex": 937.229313064678
    }
  ],
  "series": [
    {
      "key": "rentIndex",
      "label": "Rent prices",
      "sourceId": "CUSR0000SEHA",
      "rawKey": "rentCpi",
      "rawUnit": "CPI, 1982\u20131984=100",
      "frequency": "Annual arithmetic mean of all 12 seasonally adjusted monthly observations",
      "scope": "Rent of primary residence paid by urban consumers. This is a rent price index, not dollar rent or newly advertised asking rents."
    },
    {
      "key": "profitIndex",
      "label": "Industry profits",
      "sourceId": "N3258C0A144NBEA",
      "rawKey": "profitMillions",
      "rawUnit": "Millions of current U.S. dollars",
      "frequency": "Annual, not seasonally adjusted",
      "scope": "After-tax corporate profits of domestic real estate and rental and leasing. Includes commercial real estate and rental/leasing activities; not a measure of residential landlords alone."
    }
  ],
  "method": [
    "Read both series exclusively from the exact frozen CSVs identified below.",
    "Use only common years with 12 rent observations. October 2025 is missing, and 2026 is incomplete; both years are excluded.",
    "Compute rent annual means without intermediate rounding. Divide each series by its own 1998 observation and multiply by 100.",
    "Both profiles use one linear vertical scale with zero at the common ground line. Building tops show industry profits; the dashed band shows rent prices. Declines are retained.",
    "This compares price growth with nominal profit growth. It does not identify causation, profit margins, a transfer of money, or the share of rent paid as profit."
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "id": "N3258C0A144NBEA",
      "url": "https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.csv?id=N3258C0A144NBEA",
      "bytes": 505,
      "sha256": "ddefe8ad628426504a0713b18a3d941ddc9ecb1913d09d63624462c2df320669",
      "retrievedAt": "2026-11-06T23:21:14.106111+00:00",
      "contentType": "application/csv",
      "publisher": "U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis",
      "title": "Corporate profits after tax: Domestic industries: Real estate and rental and leasing",
      "pageUrl": "https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/N3258C0A144NBEA",
      "localFile": "inputs/N3258C0A144NBEA.csv",
      "rights": "U.S. government data, public domain; source citation requested."
    },
    {
      "id": "CUSR0000SEHA",
      "url": "https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.csv?id=CUSR0000SEHA",
      "bytes": 10424,
      "sha256": "957d991c6e2eed86a7e7f9bc6bfaffa62230c6d52cc33e264d619e89a01317f5",
      "retrievedAt": "2026-11-06T23:21:14.190224+00:00",
      "contentType": "application/csv",
      "publisher": "U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis",
      "title": "Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Rent of Primary Residence in U.S. City Average",
      "pageUrl": "https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SEHA",
      "localFile": "inputs/CUSR0000SEHA.csv",
      "rights": "U.S. government data, public domain; source citation requested."
    }
  ],
  "vintageNote": "Retrieved November 6, 2026. Cached FRED HTML pages returned different, older profit values. No HTML-page observations are mixed into this extract. The frozen CSV contains 2023=56411, 2024=65353, 2025=37496 (millions USD). Revisions may change future downloads.",
  "missingYears": [
    {
      "year": 2025,
      "month": "2025-10-01",
      "reason": "No valid published October observation in this CSV; do not interpolate.",
      "contextUrl": "https://www.bls.gov/cpi/additional-resources/2025-federal-government-shutdown-impact-cpi-faq.htm"
    }
  ],
  "excludedPartialRentYears": [
    {
      "year": 2025,
      "months": 11
    },
    {
      "year": 2026,
      "months": 9
    }
  ],
  "credit": "Luke Steuber / Data Poems",
  "dataRights": "The underlying BEA and BLS series are U.S. government public-domain data. FRED attribution retained above."
}