It costs a small fortune to rent an apartment in San Francisco or New York, at least for middle-class families. According to the National Rent Report for April from Apartment List, the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $4,780 a month in San Francisco and $4,450 in New York.
Fortunately for residents of the two cities, March rents have not moved much from the same period a year ago. On the other hand, rents in nearby cities have soared. The cost of a two-bedroom in San Jose reached $2,200, an increase of 3.5% since March 2015. The rent in Jersey City, close to New York City, rose 3.7% to $2,550. In nearby Stamford, Conn., rents rose 3.7% to $1,800. If renters have started to flee to areas close to San Francisco and New York City, they may be driving up the rents.
Fast-rising rents are the exception, not the rule. According to Apartment List experts:
Nationwide, average rent prices increased by 0.4% last month, and have increased by 2.7% between March 2015 and March 2016 overall. The median price for a 2-bedroom apartment in the U.S. is $1,300, while 1-bedrooms average $1,150.
At the bottom of the list of rental costs are several cities that are part of the old rust belt. The median price for a two-bedroom in Cleveland last month was $830, in Detroit $680, in Fort Wayne $640, in Toledo $700 and in Grand Rapids $940.
Location, location, location.
Methodology: Apartment List Rent Report data is drawn monthly from the millions of listings on its site. All average prices are calculated as the median for the specified size and time period. For top city rankings, the firm calculated median one-bedroom and two-bedroom rents in 100 top cities and then ranked them by two-bedroom rents. Price changes are calculated using a “same unit” methodology similar to the Case-Shiller “repeat sales” home prices methodology, and averages are not value weighted.
About Apartment List Rent Reports:
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