Across the nation, rents for one-bedroom apartments were flat on a year-over-year basis this past January, while two-bedroom rents grew by 0.7%, according to rental website Zumper.
On a monthly basis, one- and two-bedroom rents each rose 0.3%, reaching median monthly prices of $1,220 and 1,464, respectively.
The largest markets in the country saw a mixed bag of growth rates. Despite trimming 1.7% from its one-bedroom rents and 1.9% from its two-bedroom rents on an annual basis, for example, San Francisco held onto its title as the most expensive rental market in the nation — $3,520 for a one-bedroom unit and $4,550 for a two-bedroom unit.
Other expensive markets also saw rent decreases. Seattle and San Diego — both among the nation’s top 10 most expensive cities for one- and two-bedroom apartments — saw rents fall for both property types on a monthly and yearly basis last month. Seattle logged an annual drop of 12.7% in its two-bedroom rents, the steepest decline among the top 10.
On the flipside, New York City — already with the second-priciest one-bedroom rents in the country — posted a year-over-year gain of 7.9%, ending last month at $3,000. Washington, D.C., saw its two-bedroom rates jump annually by 15.1% to $3,050, tied for the third-priciest market in the U.S.
Year over year, the fastest growing one-bedroom rent in the country last month belonged to Cleveland, with its 16% growth rate bringing the median rent to $940. On a month-over-month basis, the largest one-bedroom growth rate was in St. Louis (4.9%), which jumped three spots in Zumper’s ranking to become the 71st-priciest city in the U.S. at $860.
Conversely, the largest year-over-year drop in one-bedroom rent prices last month occurred in Syracuse, New York, which shed 14.9% from January 2019 to January 2020 to start this year at $800. One-bedroom rents in Providence, Rhode Island, saw the largest monthly decrease, falling 5.2% to $1,270. Providence also saw a stark year-over-year decline at 14.8%, tied with Baltimore for the second-largest retreat among the cities tracked by Zumper.
Zumper’s monthly rent reports are aggregated from more than 1 million active listings nationwide, a combination of proprietary listings and third-party listings from listing-service providers. The company uses that data to compute median asking rents for the 100 largest cities in the country, as well as 300 additional cities within major metropolitan areas.
Author
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Arnie Aurellano is chief reporter and website content editor at Scotsman Guide.