Inflation has been a persistent nightmare, and rising rents nationwide are partly to blame. Unfortunately for renters, things are unlikely to get better this year.

"No quick relief in rent increases," Alan Detmeister, a senior economist at UBS, told Yahoo Finance. "Probably not getting too much worse after the early next year [or] probably peaking early next year but then a long slow, downward pace on rent increases and still staying high through at least the end of 2024."

The rental inflation issue is related to the larger inflation picture amid the pandemic.

Early in the pandemic, American interest in buying homes surged as COVID-19 spread and mortgage rates were at historic lows. Home prices soon followed, pushing some buyers out of the market and back into renting.

That trend intensified this year as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to cool demand in areas such as the for-sale housing market, with higher mortgage rates sidelining more would-be buyers and sending rents even higher.

"As the challenges for home buyers start to increase at this higher interest rate environment, we will see more people remain in rental markets for longer," Zillow Chief Economist Skylar Olsen told Yahoo Finance Live. "They'll have to save up or downsize expectations in order to access home ownership with a lower debt load in order to avoid the impact of higher rates. And so that means you rent for longer."

Zumper’s National Rent Index hit another record high in July — with the median monthly price for a newly listed one-bedroom apartment climbing to $1,450, up 11% from a year ago.

And while New York City remained the most expensive city in the U.S. for rentals — the median cost of a one-bedroom apartment in the city came in at $3,780, according to Zumper — demand is also hot in more affordable markets in places like Tennessee and North Carolina "as people continue migrating to these states in search of more space and friendlier cost of living."