Kentucky rental market data

Median home-value growth was negative 0.5% across 14 metros, with a 10th-to-90th percentile range from negative 3.4% to 2.2%. Median asking-rent growth was 3.2% across the 12 metros with year-over-year rent data, and its corresponding range was 1.2% to 5.4%. The supplied difference between the two medians is 3.6 percentage points, but it is a distribution-level comparison rather than a result for every metro.

Murray shows the sharpest named separation: asking rent rose 5.2% while home value fell 23.6%, a calculated 28.8-percentage-point gap. Paducah paired 6.7% rent growth with a 3.3% value decline and a 9.0% gross yield. Owensboro is a counterexample to outright price contraction, with rent up 5.4% and value up 0.6%. These gross yields are useful acquisition screens, not estimates of return after vacancy, repairs, financing, taxes or insurance.

In July 2026, Apartment List’s Kentucky recent-lease rent was $1,085, down from $1,088 and negative 0.3% year over year. Its separate Vacancy Index increased by 0.9 percentage points to 6.7%, while its time-on-market series lengthened by 3.3 days to 26.3. None of these measures should be substituted for Zillow asking rent or combined into a single liquidity score.

The relative readings are less adverse than the direction of change. Kentucky’s rent decline was 0.8 percentage points less negative than the national decline, current vacancy was 0.4 percentage points lower, and time on market was 3.7 days shorter. That genuine counter-signal argues against treating the state figures as evidence of uniformly weak leasing, but the year-over-year changes still require concessions and lease-up assumptions to be checked locally.

The measured metro median was 2.9 months of resale supply, 45.5 days on market, a 28.9% price-drop share and a 97.9% sale-to-list ratio. At the slower tails, months of supply reached 4.8, days on market reached 71.3 and the price-drop share reached 40.4%; the lower-tail sale-to-list ratio was 96.2%. These percentiles need not refer to the same metro, but they show why a statewide exit assumption would be unreliable. Permit activity also ranged from 1.2 to 5.2 units per 1,000 residents between the 10th and 90th percentiles.

Bowling Green recorded 5.2 months of supply and 86 days on market, although its 20.5% price-drop share was below the metro median and its sale-to-list ratio was 97.8%. Somerset had 4.9 months of supply, 65 days on market, a 28.6% price-drop share and a 95.9% sale-to-list ratio. These are Redfin resale measures, not Apartment List rental listing time; they belong in exit-price and holding-period screens rather than lease-up estimates.

The migration series covers all 120 counties and records 112,920 moves in versus 110,713 moves out, for net migration of 2,207. That equals 0.5 net movers per 1,000 residents against a state population of 4,534,824. Aggregate incoming mover income exceeded outgoing mover income by $253,536. The direction is positive, but its size does not independently validate strong rental absorption.

Median metro job growth was 0.5%, with a 10th-to-90th percentile range from negative 0.3% to 1.4%. Frankfort grew 2.5%, Somerset 1.5% and Richmond 1.1%, showing stronger named pockets within a mixed distribution. The migration data cover 2022-2023, while the market series are more current, so the packet cannot establish that those movers support present rents in any specific metro.

Across 120 counties, the median ACS total housing vacancy rate was 13.1%, ranging from 6.7% at the 10th percentile to 20.6% at the 90th. The median renter share was 25.6%, while the median share of renters paying at least 30% of income toward rent was 43.7%; that burden ranged from 33.8% to 53.5%. The stock was predominantly single-family, with a 71.0% median share, while the median large-multifamily share was 0.9%.

Martin County combined a 69.9% renter-burden rate with 20.7% total housing vacancy and a 15.1% renter share. Clay County had 65.2% renter burden and 15.9% vacancy, while Lee County had 64.5% burden and 19.6% vacancy. ACS housing vacancy is broader than rental vacancy and must not be read as the Apartment List Vacancy Index. High burden alongside broad vacancy does not prove usable rental supply or room for rent increases; it calls for screening the target renter pool, unit condition and competing tenure locally.

Inland flood is the mutually exclusive leading-hazard label for 113 counties, while earthquake leads in seven. These are county-level top-hazard classifications: they do not mean every parcel in a labeled county has that exposure. The FEMA loss-ratio distribution ran from 0.12% at the 10th percentile to 0.39% at the 90th, with a 0.19% median.

Floyd County’s loss ratio was 0.74%, Martin County’s 0.53% and Clay County’s 0.49%, each above the county 90th percentile. Property-tax rates had a separate median of 0.68% and a 10th-to-90th percentile range of 0.56% to 0.86%; median tax bills ranged from $643 to $1,893 over the same percentiles. Campbell County illustrates why the dimensions must be screened independently: its property-tax rate was 1.01% and median tax was $2,556, while its loss ratio was 0.12%. County labels and distributions cannot replace a parcel hazard review, insurance quote or actual tax bill.