Rents are rising in Centre County. Where is cheapest, most expensive?
Penn State students have gone home for the summer, meaning there are at least some rentals available in the State College area. But where people settle depends on their wallet.
In March, the Centre Daily Times found home purchases have become less accessible in some parts of Centre County over the past decade or so. It is a similar story with rentals, though the trend is not uniform throughout the county.
The median renter in Halfmoon Township, which has very few rental units and has some of the most expensive homeownership costs in the county, paid the same gross rent — rent plus utilities — in 2024 as in 2014, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The burea’s 2024 American Community Survey, released earlier this year, captures data over a five-year period, meaning it is less a crystal ball and more a highlight reel. There is also room for error, especially in more local data and smaller datasets.
Halfmoon, Harris and Rush townships were the only three municipalities to see gross rents fall from the 2019 survey to the most recent one. Philipsburg, a growing borough 30 minutes from State College, had the lowest median gross rent in the most recent survey at $645.
Snow Shoe Township, Port Matilda, Howard Township and Halfmoon Township rounded out the bottom five, each with gross rents under $800. Port Matilda was the only one in the group to see its median gross rent rise by more than 10% in the past half decade.
By contrast, Unionville and the townships of Patton, Ferguson, Penn and Harris made up the five most expensive municipalities for renters in Centre County. Unionville, median gross rent $1,523, is an outlier population-wise, and its tiny rental supply introduces a greater margin of error. Patton, Ferguson and Harris townships, all among the most populated in the county, sit right outside State College.
Low-population Curtin Township, Unionville, Taylor Township, Milesburg and Union Township each saw the greatest increases in median gross rent over the past half decade, each seeing rates rise 50% or more. Over the same period, median gross rent in Centre County has risen 21%, and in Pennsylvania 29%. It was largely the lower-population, rural municipalities outpacing the state.
