San Francisco was declared to be the most expensive city when it comes to apartment rents in the country since 2010.
But for the first time following almost a decade of keeping the title, New York was again declared this month as the most expensive market in the nation. In NYC, the median one-bedroom rent this month hits $2, 810, Zumper said, while in San Francisco, it costs $2, 800.
This marks the first time San Francisco was overtaken by New York since the rental data was collected by Zumper in 2014.
This year, the spread between the two main U.S. cities has been dropping constantly. A median one-bedroom rent in San Francisco in early 2019 surpassed $800 than that of New York.
The median one-bedroom rent dropped by 23.4 percent in San Francisco last year. On the other hand, New York recorded a 17.5% fall. This, despite that the two cities observed a plunge in rents because of the pandemic, as both are set to recover with the now available COVID-19 vaccines.
Rent in New York, however, saw an increase of 19.6% since January this year. Now, it fell to only 1.4% compared to March last year.
New York has rebounded with rent looming roughly in pre-pandemic levels, while SF rent only rose by 4.5%.
“It’s hard to say with any level of definity because the delta variant is a huge wild card, but in the near-term, you could see S.F. pass NYC again,” Zumper data journalist Jeff Andrews said, as reported by SFGate. “You could see them swapping spots a few times.”
“I think the primary thing to consider is this: New York rent is now down only 1.4% relative to March 2020, meaning it’s basically regained all its losses over the pandemic. How much more growth does it have given it’s already near its pre-pandemic peaks?” Andrews noted. “San Francisco, meanwhile, is still down 20% relative to March 2020, meaning it has a lot of room for growth. Offices reopening would likely draw people back to SF and thus drive rent back up, but that’s looking more and more like it’ll be 2022 before that happens.”
