New apartments in the U.S. fell to their lowest level since 2013

The average square footage of new apartments in the U.S. went down in 2022, according to a report from RentCafe.

The real estate website found that new apartments sizes went down 30 square feet over a 12 month period, coming in at an average of 887 for 2022. The reduction in space last year was the biggest drop in a year and to some extent resulted from studio and one-bedrooms seeing an increase in what proportion of the market they make up, according to RentCafe.

The report said that the average for new apartments in the United States was 917 square feet in the year 2021. The year prior to that was 913, and pre-pandemic 2019 averaged 910.

RentCafe used data about apartment size and rent in America's 100 largest cities for renters from Yardi Matrix to create its report.

The average amount of space in a new apartment last year varied by region, according to the report. The three regions with the most square footage on average were the South at 993 square feet, the Southeast at 983 square feet and the Western at 923 square feet, according to RentCafe.

Here are the three regions that the report found to have the smallest amount of space in new apartments in 2022:

RentCafe dubbed Tallahassee the city with the most spacious new apartments of the 100 it looked at. The average area for a new apartment in the capital of Florida was almost 1,180 square feet, according to the report.

Seattle was on the other end of the spectrum. The city is ranked No. According to RentCafe, 1 for the smallest new apartments averaged 659 square feet for such abodes in 2022. That is more than 500 square feet smaller than the average new apartment in Tallahassee.

The average apartment size has dropped by 5.7% between 2013 and 2022, according to the report.