Photo by Omar Prestwich on Unsplash
The typical one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles will now cost you about $77 less per month than the same time last year. That’s a savings of about $924 per year — not a huge chunk of change, but it’s enough to cover your monthly internet bill or a weekend getaway to Palm Springs once this godforsaken pandemic is over.
The latest National Rent Report from Zumper suggests that one-bedroom rents in Los Angeles dropped 0.9 percent from May to June, amounting to a median price of $2,150 per month. Compared to the same period last year, rents have fallen 3.6 percent — a not-insignificant tumble in a city that hadn’t seen rent prices fall in 10 years up until just a few months ago.
Median rent prices for two-bedroom apartments declined 0.7 percent month-over-month to $2,960. That’s down 5.1 percent from June 2019 levels and a savings of $150 per month or $1,800 per year.
“As the pandemic persists on, the demand for rentals has continued to shift away from [pricey] areas and a significant amount of that demand seems to be moving toward neighboring, less expensive areas,” explains the report.
The California cities that have experienced the most pronounced “pandemic pricing” include San Jose and San Francisco, where median rents for one-bedroom apartments plummeted 8.05 percent and 5.25 percent, respectively, between March and June.
These high-priced rental markets are hubs for the tech industry of Silicon Valley. As more and more companies allow their employees to transition to full-time remote work, an increasing number of renters in the area have begun looking elsewhere for more living space and cheaper rent.
“There has been a demand shift away from some of the most expensive markets and the dips in these two markets really highlights this trend,” concludes a corresponding Zumper report on pandemic pricing.
