Young professionals are paying top-market rents to live in new upscale apartment towers sprouting in Nashville and other downtowns across the country. They’re sacrificing living space for a prime urban location and extras such as cooking classes, dog-wash stations and poolside Wi-Fi.Developers, in the biggest U.S. apartment-construction boom in almost a decade, are shrinking the size of units so they can command luxury rates without narrowing the pool of potential tenants. The median size of apartments in new U.S. buildings fell last year to 1,043 square feet, the smallest since 2002, Census Bureau data.
At the same time, leasing is getting more expensive. The U.S. average rent per square foot was $1.25 in May, the highest in records dating to 1996, according to Axiometrics Inc.
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