Having slipped back under $3,500 last month, the weighted average asking rent for an apartment in San Francisco has since inched down a few more bucks to around $3,450 a month.
As such, the average asking rent in San Francisco is now one (1) percent lower than at the same time last year, 15 percent lower than prior to the pandemic, and over 22 percent below its 2015-era peak of nearly $4,500 a month, with the average asking rent for a one-bedroom in San Francisco currently hovering around $2,900 per month, which is one (1) percent lower than at the same time last year, 17 percent lower than prior to the pandemic, and 21 percent below peak.
At the same time, while the number of apartments listed for rent in San Francisco ticked down around 10 percent over the past month, there are still nearly 1o percent more units listed for rent than there were at the same time last year and 10 percent more than prior to the pandemic, with local employment trending down, facts that aren’t “bearish” or “pessimistic” in nature but are key to understanding and acting on the actual market trends, none of which should catch any plugged-in readers, other than the most obstinate, by surprise.
Keep in mind that our analysis of the rental market in San Francisco is based on over 190,000 data points going back to 2004 that we maintain, normalize and index on a monthly basis versus relying on a few years of data or “recollections.” We’ll keep you posted and plugged-in.
As a data point I have a very nice 2+ br victorian apartment that rented for $4900 in 2015 and is now struggling to find a tenant at $4000.
According to this I should probably drop the rent another $100.
Editor, I’d be interested to know whether you weigh lightly sources like Craigslist and FB Marketplace where there are some underpriced but fraudulent rental listings.