Pittsburgh Has Cheapest Apartment Rents at $1,090

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 11:28AM EST · Published Mar 28, 10:35AM EDT

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Pittsburgh Has Cheapest Apartment Rents at $1,090 — © Thinkstock

Pittsburgh has the lowest apartment rents among the nation’s largest cities, and the rates will drop this year. Rents in the city are expected to drop to $1,079 by December. The average rent nationwide is $1,381, and it is expected to rise 1.1% this year

The cities with the highest rents are in the Silicon Valley area, according to new research from Zillow. The average rent in San Diego at the end of last year was $3,413. The figure is expected to rise another 7.8% this year to $3,699. The average rent in San Francisco is $3,338 and is expected to rise 5.59% to $3,536 by year’s end

Along with Pittsburgh, rents are cheap in other old rust belt cities. The average rent in Detroit is $1,132 and is expected to hit $1,128 by the end of 2016. The average rate in Cleveland is $1,124, and it is expected to reach $1,117 by year’s end. The average rate in Indianapolis is $1,818 and will drop to $1,138. Landlords clearly don’t have leverage in poor cities.

Zillow commented on the trends:

Even with the slowdown, rents will remain unaffordable in many of the major markets across the U.S., especially on the West Coast. Renters in San Francisco and Los Angeles can expect to spend 40 percent of their income on a rental payment.

“Hot markets are still going to be hot in 2016, but rents won’t rise as quickly as they have been,” said Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Svenja Gudell. “The slowdown in rental appreciation will provide some relief for renters who’ve been seeing their rents rise dramatically every single year for the past few years. However, the situation remains tough on the ground: rents are still rising and renters are struggling to keep up.”

Metropolitan Area	Dec. 2015 ZHVI	Dec. 2015 ZRI	ZRI Forecast for Dec. 2016	Forecasted Difference Between Dec. 2015 ZRI and Dec. 2016 ZRI
United States	$ 183,500	$ 1,381	$ 1,396	1.1%
New York/Northern New Jersey	$ 381,200	$ 2,384	$ 2,400	0.7%
Los Angeles, CA	$ 554,700	$ 2,491	$ 2,561	2.8%
Chicago, IL	$ 193,000	$ 1,633	$ 1,611	-1.4%
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	$ 177,200	$ 1,500	$ 1,532	2.1%
Philadelphia, PA	$ 203,100	$ 1,558	$ 1,550	-0.5%
Houston, TX	$ 170,100	$ 1,579	$ 1,619	2.5%
Washington, DC	$ 357,800	$ 2,107	$ 2,118	0.5%
Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL	$ 225,700	$ 1,822	$ 1,886	3.5%
Atlanta, GA	$ 160,000	$ 1,274	$ 1,280	0.5%
Boston, MA	$ 382,900	$ 2,247	$ 2,309	2.7%
San Francisco, CA	$ 785,800	$ 3,338	$ 3,536	5.9%
Detroit, MI	$ 121,800	$ 1,132	$ 1,128	-0.4%
Riverside, CA	$ 298,200	$ 1,691	$ 1,723	1.9%
Phoenix, AZ	$ 216,000	$ 1,249	$ 1,266	1.4%
Seattle, WA	$ 368,700	$ 1,931	$ 2,018	4.5%
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN	$ 214,300	$ 1,500	$ 1,511	0.8%
San Diego, CA	$ 499,900	$ 2,316	$ 2,348	1.4%
St. Louis, MO	$ 141,000	$ 1,123	$ 1,115	-0.7%
Tampa, FL	$ 160,100	$ 1,296	$ 1,302	0.5%
Baltimore, MD	$ 242,300	$ 1,714	$ 1,702	-0.7%
Denver, CO	$ 320,800	$ 1,952	$ 2,031	4.0%
Pittsburgh, PA	$ 126,700	$ 1,090	$ 1,079	-1.0%
Portland, OR	$ 310,200	$ 1,689	$ 1,753	3.8%
Charlotte, NC	$ 157,800	$ 1,221	$ 1,250	2.4%
Sacramento, CA	$ 331,500	$ 1,599	$ 1,654	3.4%
San Antonio, TX	$ 148,000	$ 1,301	$ 1,306	0.4%
Orlando, FL	$ 180,600	$ 1,343	$ 1,373	2.2%
Cincinnati, OH	$ 141,800	$ 1,225	$ 1,243	1.5%
Cleveland, OH	$ 124,300	$ 1,124	$ 1,117	-0.6%
Kansas City, MO	$ 146,600	$ 1,199	$ 1,228	2.4%
Las Vegas, NV	$ 199,800	$ 1,212	$ 1,191	-1.8%
Columbus, OH	$ 150,900	$ 1,271	$ 1,289	1.4%
Indianapolis, IN	$ 130,100	$ 1,181	$ 1,138	-3.6%
San Jose, CA	$ 933,000	$ 3,431	$ 3,699	7.8%
Austin, TX	$ 242,900	$ 1,683	$ 1,741	3.4%

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.