With 97.5% of apartments in the U.S. managed by professionals, occupancy reached an all-time high in December, according to a recent Bloomberg article. It’s a surprising occupancy rate, according to experts. It is 2 percentage points higher than in December 2020—which translates to hundreds of thousands of apartments—in an industry where rates between 95% and 96% are considered full occupancy, they say.

The U.S. apartment rental market appeared to be heading for significant changes during the pandemic, with many families looking for a new home in the suburbs, driving up apartment vacancies. However, the numbers indicate that this was not the case. The number of families that moved between March 2020 and March 2021 was minimal, according to a Pew Research Center report cited in the article. The result? Rents continue to rise in a market where demand continues to outpace supply.