Rent in Expensive Cities Drops

The median May rent for a 2-bedroom apartment in the top 100 U.S. cities is $1,300 a month. In San Francisco, a 2-bedroom apartment will set you back $4,690 a month while New York offers a bargain price of $4,480 a month for a 2-bedroom apartment.

Both those rates are slightly higher month over month, but they are the exceptions among expensive U.S. coastal cities. Rents in Austin, Los Angeles, and Houston are down 0.5%, 0.9%, and 0.2%, respectively.

The national rental price index for the past 12 months shows a median price increase of 2.8%, down slightly from the 12-month peak in March.

Year over year, rents are higher in all 5 cities, led by Austin where rents are up 4.9%. Lined up behind Austin are Los Angeles (up 4.1%), San Francisco (up 1.4%), Houston (up 0.8%), and New York (up 0.6%).

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The five cities where rents have risen the most in the past year are:

1. Vancouver, Washington – up 10.8%
2. Colorado Springs, Colorado – up 10.5%
3. Long Beach, California – 9.8%
4. Manchester, New Hampshire – up 9.8%
5. Anaheim, California – up 9.1%

The data were published Sunday by Apartment List and is drawn from the listings on the company’s website. For top city rankings the company calculates median 1-bedroom and 2-bedroom rents in 100 top cities and then ranks them by 2-bedroom rents.

The five cities where rents are rising the fastest are Nashville, Dallas, Charlotte, Atlanta, and Phoenix. Rents in Nashville are nearly 9% higher than they were a year ago, while rent hikes are clustered around 5% in the other four cities.

And where is the median price for a 2-bedroom apartment lowest? Here are the five cities with the lowest rents:

1. Huntsville, Alabama – $590
2. Fort Wayne, Indiana – $630
3. Toledo, Ohio – $640
4. Wichita, Kansas – $640
5. Columbus, Georgia – $650

The cities where rents have declined the most in the past year are Fayetteville, North Carolina (down 4% to $700 for a 2-bedroom apartment); New Orleans (down 4% to $1,650); El Paso (down 3.6% to $800); Winston-Salem, North Carolina (down 1.8% to $740); and Anchorage (down 1.7% to $1,200).