💸 The rent is (still) too damn high

In the fourth quarter of 2022, the average asking rent in the Columbus metro area was $1,135 — up 9.1% from a year earlier.

Why it matters: Affordability concerns are starting to weigh down the booming rental market.

What's happening: Many would-be home buyers chose to rent longer last year, sustaining apartment demand, per economic research firm Moody's Analytics. But folks are hitting their spending limit.

• Nationally, for the first time in over two decades, households now have to spend 30% of their income on average rents.

What they're saying: Year-over-year rent growth slowed in the second half of the year across the board, "and we expect further deceleration as new supply makes it to market at the same time the labor market softens," senior economist Lu Chen tells Axios.

Zoom out: Rents are already falling in cities that were near the epicenter of the pandemic home-price boom, Axios' Matt Phillips reports.

What we're watching: New apartment construction. The expected surge in supply could help bring down prices.

Yes, but: Experts tell the Wall Street Journal that most cities will "remain undersupplied with the kind of affordable units that see the highest demand."