Kolin Carswell is a Wilmington native. He started working service jobs after attending UNCW, and was able to rent an apartment in 2017 with his wages.
"I've pretty much always was able to afford to live solo for the longest time, and it was just steady increases every year, but then it kind of felt like they were going up exponentially," he said.
By 2025, he realized he couldn’t swing it anymore. Rents started escalating way faster than his paychecks after the pandemic.
“I think from '21 to '22 was probably the biggest increase I saw. That was a really memorable," he said. "I think I was paying like $1180 to like $1350.”
When he moved out this spring, his rent was more than $1500 — and was eating half his paycheck every month. "It ended up getting to the point where I was eating into my savings.”
Now, at age 30 and working as a bartender, Kolin is living with a roommate. He doesn’t see himself living alone again anytime in the foreseeable future. And he’s not alone. According to the latest data from the North Carolina Housing Coalition, 54% of renters are cost-burdened when it comes to their housing, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent.
At the same time, it does seem like the rental market is finally slowing down a bit. According to the latest data from the Wilmington Apartment Association, occupancy rates are lower than the industry aims for, hovering around 82% for all rentals in Wilmington. That includes the newest apartments that are in a phase of trying to rapidly lease all their units. But for stabilized apartments that have already been on the market a while, occupancy is at 93%, still lower than landlords want.
It means rents have shifted, too. Kolin’s old apartment is now leasing for just over $1200. That's $300 less than they had him in it for. He said seeing that was, "Pretty rough. Because, I mean, it was in April when I moved, and it's November now, and I even asked them, like, 'Hey, I'm seeing these rates, would you be able to, like, match the rates you're offering others?' And they flat-out turned me down.”
Rents rose precipitously in 2022 in Wilmington, outpacing even the national trends. According to data from Apartments.com; the average 1-bedroom went from under $1000 in 2020, but rose to more than $1200 just two years later. Now prices have corrected a bit – the average October rent for a 1-bedroom in the city was $1163 - largely thanks to more than 7,000 new rental units coming onto the market in the past few years.
But seems like developers are getting a little gun-shy.
There are pressures on them that make it harder to build, according to housing advocate Liz Carbone. "Timber tariffs are now up to 45% on all imports from Canada. So those are, those are real pains that we're going to feel immediately and for the short and long term here in the developer space.” She added that interest rates and local zoning regulations are also making it a bit harder to build.
Developer McKay Siegel of East West Partners said his company is shifting away from apartments. "We have sort of pivoted to more for-sale stuff. We've got some townhomes coming up. We're selling lots as that sort of seems to be where the market has gone the last two or three years.”
A big part of that is interest rates and the low rate of return on apartments. Siegel says he needs to see interest rates that go down and stay down, "So that if I start a project two years from now, it's not going to be up way up when we deliver it. That's how developers go broke.”
The cooling rental market can be seen in some of these new apartments going up around town – they all have concessions, meaning they offer sign-on bonuses and free months of rent to get a tenant in the door. Even Kolin’s old apartment is offering a $500 sign-on bonus. Kolin was surprised to see that on their website, just over 6 months after his lease ended. "They said they have 13 of the two-bedroom units that I had available. When I was moving in there, I got lucky to even get a spot, because they were sought after.”
With so many brand-new units on the market, older apartments just might have to start adjusting their prices to lease up. But it’s a bit too soon to tell. Certainly, the majority of renters in Wilmington still can’t find an affordable place to live.
