Median rents went up by 30% between 2007 and 2017: https://images.app.goo.gl/m9SwrkpQYhuNBMeaA. That’s 2.6% per year, somewhat higher than the 2% inflation target, but not much.

Housing is hard to gauge because the same house moves up market as areas develop. When I was a kid, Reston (where Google has a big office), was a solidly middle, even lower middle class suburb with old housing stock. Now it’s got a Metro station, tons of new shopping, tons of tech jobs. Reston is, now, what Clarendon was when was a kid. Rents have gone way up in Reston, but that’s not inflation. It’s paying more for a more in-demand, premium product.

(The same thing happens with cars by the way. The Toyota Corolla was once Toyota’s low-end model. Now, it’s a mainstream sedan, with whole nameplate, Scion, filling the market segment previously targeted by the Corolla.)