Rent Is Down Year-Over-Year In Most CA Metros

Rents are down year-over-year in a majority of California metro areas, according to data provided in September by Apartment List.

Rent dropped the greatest percentage in Vallejo and Santa Rosa, where it was down 2.3 percent, while it rose the most in San Francisco, Fresno and San Jose, up 4.9 percent, 4.1 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively.

“The fastest growth in the San Francisco metro is happening in the urban core; the city of San Francisco has seen prices spike by a staggering 12.4 percent over the past year,” according to Apartment List.

“Despite the recent strengthening of rent growth in the Bay Area, the region has been the slowest to bounce back from pandemic declines; in fact, we estimate that rents in the San Francisco metro have now just barely surpassed their early-2020 level.”

San Francisco had the fastest year-over-year growth percentage of any metro area with 1 million or more residents nationwide, followed by Chicago at 4.1 percent, and then Fresno and San Jose.

Nationally, rents were down 0.8 percent year-over-year, with the national median rent at $1,394 in September, 3.3 percent below its August 2022 peak but also 22 percent above its January 2021 level. The recent state of the national market reflects, among other things, surging multifamily housing construction, according to Apartment List.

Below is the full list of year-over-year rent changes in California metros, ranked by percentage point shifts:

• Vallejo, -2.3
• Santa Rosa, -2.3
• Santa Maria, -2
• Santa Cruz, -1.9
• Napa, -1.2
• Riverside, -1.2
• Sacramento, -1
• Stockton, -0.5
• San Diego, -0.1
• Los Angeles, 0.6
• Oxnard, 0.8
• San Jose, 3.8
• Fresno, 4.1
• San Francisco, 4.9