Rents jump in Oakland, drop in San Francisco
Pricing trends vary not only by city but also by apartment type
Though many Bay Area residents continue to see rising rents, some local cities actually are registering dips in monthly rates.
That’s according to Apartment Guide’s new annual report on the nation’s rental market, which compared 2019 average prices for multifamily rental properties to the previous year. Unlike a number of its competitors, Apartment Guide looks not only at the rental market overall but at various apartment types, from studios on up. And the Bay Area picture is decidedly mixed.
Although it remains one of the nation’s most expensive markets, rents were down across the board in San Francisco. Studios ticked down a surprising 8.2% from 2018 to 2019 to around $3,842. One-bedroom apartments came in 1.2% cheaper at about $4,063, and two-bedroom homes were 11.2% cheaper at about $5,478.
“Prices are getting a little more affordable,” said Brian Carberry, managing director of Apartment Guide. “It’s still really expensive to live there; don’t get me wrong.”
Across the bay, the opposite was true. Rents rose in Oakland for all apartment types in 2019. Studios cost 3.3% more in 2019 at about $2,839, one-bedroom units were .7% more expensive at about $3,308 and two-bedroom units were 6% more at an average of roughly $4,338.
Merika Reagan has lived in her East Oakland apartment for around five years. Since her initial two-year lease expired, her landlord has tried to raise her rent by hundreds of dollars. The anti- displacement advocacy group ACCE Oakland initially helped her negotiate a more modest increase, but the monthly rent payments are still a stretch for the dog walker, pet sitter and trainer.
“I see people being displaced all around me,” the 44-year- old said, adding that the experience disrupted her sleep and gave her anxiety. “I don’t want to be out there, too.” In San Jose, the market varies. The average studio was 2.5% more expensive in 2019 at $2,669.71, and the average onebedroom apartment cost .9% more, at $3,118.25. But the av
erage two- bedroom unit was 1.6% less expensive than in 2018, at $3,685.59.
Fremont, the only other Bay Area city in the report’s roundup of the nation’s 100 most populated cities, also saw a mix of changes, with one-bedroom apartments going for less than in 2018 but two-bedroom units renting for slightly more.
Whether the softening of prices in some areas is temporary or indicative of a true downswing, “It’s too early to make that conclusion,” Carberry said.
Across California, rents for all apartment types have crept up — with two- and threebedroom units seeing the most significant increases.
In some nearby states that have proven popular with Californians f leeing the state’s expensive housing market, rents have ballooned. In Idaho, home to recent hot spot Boise, the cost of renting a studio soared more than 32% from 2018 to 2019. Still, at $1,695, renting a studio in Idaho was a steal in 2019 compared with lodgins in California, where a studio cost an average of $2,430.
Just one California city — Long Beach — cracks the top 10 list of where rents for a onebedroom apartment are increasing the most, although no city in the Golden State made the top 10 list of where rents are declining, either.
Apar tment Guide suggests that sluggish apartment construction across the country in the past decade has put increasing pressure on the rental market and fueled an uptick in prices, particularly in the West. And yet the report also acknowledges that places with low vacancy rates like San Francisco also have seen price decreases, “indicating that undersupply may now be starting to loosen its grip on these markets.”
Though that might be welcome news for some California housing advocates, who have heralded Gov. Gavin Newsom’s call to build 3.5 million new homes by 2025, the data suggests that the apartments being built aren’t necessarily affordable for most of the state’s residents.
Michael Trujillo, a staff attorney for the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, which advocates on behalf of tenants, said the report doesn’t “really ref lect what’s going on for lowincome renters.”
San Jose, he pointed out, has met marketrate housing goals but failed to add enough affordable housing even as some existing affordable units are removed.
“That kind of creates an exclusionary market for certain kinds of people,” Trujillo said.
According to Apartment Guide, more renters are high- income, older than 55 and searching for newer apartments with lots of amenities.
In San Jose, Oakland and elsewhere, developers are building luxury homes that tenant advocacy groups say are pushing low- income renters out. Census data released last year found that with a number of San Francisco renters relocating to Oakland for its comparatively affordable rents, longtime Oakland renters were being pushed to Contra Costa County or, in some cases, leaving the state altogether.
Reagan, the Oakland renter, was born and raised in San Francisco but eventually moved across the bay.
“I’ve never been able to live there as an adult,” Reagan said. “It’s impossible.”