Sell Your Commercial Property In Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania rental market at a glance

Pennsylvania had 1,617,882 renter households in the Census Bureau's 2020-2024 American Community Survey, or 30.7% of 5,274,853 occupied homes. Owners hold the other 69.3%. Apartment-style stock is modest: 740,974 Pennsylvania housing units, 12.8% of the total, sit in buildings of five or more units, per ACS table B25024.

Pennsylvania rental vacancy stood at 4.9% in the 2020-2024 DP04 housing profile. Statewide median household income was $77,971, so the $1,209 median gross rent equals about 18.6% of a typical household's gross income. Renters feel more strain than that average suggests: 48.2% of Pennsylvania renter households paid 30% or more of income on rent, per ACS table B25070.

Five-year trends in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania median gross rent rose 28.9% between the 2015-2019 and 2020-2024 ACS periods, from $938 to $1,209 a month. Median household income grew 26.3% over the same span, from $61,744 to $77,971. Rent therefore outran income by 2.6 percentage points.

Pennsylvania added 45,754 renter households between the two periods, a 2.9% gain. Units in five-plus buildings rose 7.8%, adding 53,417 units statewide. Growth was uneven across the counties profiled here.

Northampton County renter households rose 8.4% between the two ACS periods, the fastest gain among the five counties here, while Allegheny County renter households fell 1.7% even as its median gross rent climbed 29.6%.

Pennsylvania county comparison

Median gross rent among the five counties profiled here ranges from $1,004 in Luzerne County to $1,395 in Northampton County. Rental vacancy runs from 2.5% in Northampton County to 6.8% in Allegheny County, per each county's 2020-2024 ACS figures.

Allegheny County leads this list on both renter share, at 34.8%, and units in five-plus buildings, at 18.6%. Northampton County is the most owner-heavy of the five, with renters in 28.9% of occupied homes and just 10.8% of units in larger buildings.

Pennsylvania landlord, tax and transfer rules

Pennsylvania caps the security deposit at two months' rent in the first lease year and one month's rent after that, under 68 P.S. Section 250.511a. A landlord must return the deposit, with an itemized list of any claimed damages, within 30 days after the lease ends, per Section 250.512.

Notice to end a Pennsylvania tenancy is 15 days for a year-or-less or month-to-month lease and 30 days for a lease longer than a year; nonpayment notice is 10 days, all under 68 P.S. Section 250.501(b). No statewide rent control statute applies, and no Pennsylvania municipality currently caps rent on apartment buildings.

Each of Pennsylvania's 67 counties assesses real property, including apartment buildings, under its own base-year system; many counties have not done a full countywide reassessment in years, so assessed value is often adjusted rather than reset to current market value. Pennsylvania also levies a state realty transfer tax on real estate sales, on top of a local transfer tax set by the county or municipality.

What this means if you sell in Pennsylvania

Owners who sell commercial property in Pennsylvania are priced on rent rolls, vacancy and the county's assessment cycle. A building in Northampton County, at 2.5% vacancy, reads differently to a buyer than one in Allegheny County at 6.8%.

Taxes deserve a close look here. Because many Pennsylvania counties still assess on an old base year, we check whether the county's common-level ratio is set to catch up with current rents. The state and local transfer tax add to closing costs on every Pennsylvania sale.

We review Pennsylvania buildings of five or more units in Allegheny, Delaware, Lehigh, Luzerne and Northampton counties, and across the rest of Pennsylvania. Send the rent roll and the latest Pennsylvania tax bill, and we will set the property against these county figures.