Richmond apartments are getting smaller

Richmond apartments are shrinking — and now rank among the smallest in the country, according to a new report from RentCafe.

Why it matters: Apartment sizes are getting smaller nationally, a reversal in the rental market that saw unit sizes grow during the early part of the work-from-home era.

Zoom in: The average size of newer Richmond apartments is 812 square feet, 8.5% smaller than the 2022 national average of 887 square feet, per the report from listing service RentCafe.

• Richmond's average is only 72 square feet larger than the average new apartment in Manhattan.
• We rank at No. 14 in cities with the smallest apartments.
• Of note: At the local level, researchers considered new apartments those units built between 2013 and 2022.

The intrigue: With an average size of 1,006 square feet, Virginia Beach has some of the largest new apartments in the nation.

The big picture: Nationwide, newly built apartments shed 30 square feet on average in 2022 compared to 2021, per the report.

• That sharp decrease was fueled in part by more studios and one-bedroom apartments entering the market, researchers found, analyzing the 100 metro areas with the most high-density buildings.

Flashback: In 2020 and 2021, demand for more space resulted in larger unit configurations, RentCafe analyst Adina Dragos tells Axios.

• "Fast forward to 2022, the demand for more apartments prompted developers to accommodate more units in their projects," Dragos says.
• Case in point: 57% of apartments completed across the U.S. last year were small units (studios and one-bedrooms).

What we're watching: Apartments under construction. As the market keeps fluctuating post-pandemic, their size could signal whether the trend of smaller rentals will stick.