Apartments for Rent in San Francisco, CA - Home Rentals | realtor.com® (2024)

FAQs

Are rents dropping in SF? ›

San Francisco rents are flat month-over-month and down 1.0% year-over-year. The median rent in San Francisco rose by 0.5% over the course of July, and has now decreased by a total of 1.0% over the past 12 months.

Using that metric, San Francisco is the most expensive metro area in the nation by far. A household would need to earn $61.50 per hour to rent a modest two bedroom apartment in metro San Francisco, which also includes Marin and San Mateo counties.

223,174 or 62% of the households in San Francisco, CA are renter-occupied while 138,048 or 38% are owner-occupied.

“The Bay Area has among the strongest economies in the world, which attracts talent and infuses an abundance of money in the region,” Lurie writes in an email. With that, comes high salaries — according to Bloomberg, the average tech worker makes $165,000 a year — which results in "high housing costs," explains Lurie.

In the first quarter of 2024, San Francisco saw a continued rise in apartment rents, marking the longest streak of rent increases in two years. By the end of March, average rents were 1.7% higher than in November 2023. If this growth persists, the city could experience a 5% annual increase in rents.

Home prices in the city have been plummeting since reaching a peak of $1,449,470 in May 2022, with the exception of September 2023, when they saw a modest month-on-month increase from $1,226,112 to $1,228,976, according to Zillow.

"San Francisco tops the list in the Bay Area at $131,000," Rebecca Sowell with Consumer Affairs said. "That's the minimum income in order to live a comfortable lifestyle."

For rent-controlled units, the annual allowable increase amount effective March 1, 2023 through February 29, 2024 is 3.6%. This amount is based on 60% of the increase in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers in the Bay Area, which was 6% as posted in November 2022 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This was especially the case in the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas, which had some of the highest cost differentials: In San Francisco, their data showed you'll pay nearly 96% more to own versus rent.

Mass Exodus

San Francisco has lost about 7% of its population since the pandemic. A lot of people that moved out due to just being able to work from anywhere. There are some people who moved out based on taxes – especially very, very high income earners.

How much does it cost to live in an apartment in San Francisco? ›

As of August 2024, the average rent in San Francisco, CA is $2,849 per month. This is 85% higher than the national average rent price of $1,536/month, making San Francisco one of the most expensive cities in the US.

In 2022, at the request of Supervisor Dean Preston, the city's budget and legislative analyst produced a report looking at residential vacancies in San Francisco. Relying on 2019 census data, this report found that roughly 40,000 units were vacant.

The median rent in San Francisco, CA is $3,300. 2. How much does it cost to rent a house in San Francisco, CA? Houses in San Francisco, CA rent between $780 - $30,000 with a median rent of $3,300.

The new 2023 numbers classify an individual making $104,400 annually as “low income” in San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties. For a family of four in those three counties, $149,100 a year is considered low income. That number has increased dramatically over just a few years.

(NerdWallet) – An ongoing boom in apartment construction has helped slow down rental inflation — but renters shouldn't expect prices to drop dramatically from their pandemic-padded highs. That means affordability will remain the dominant narrative in rental housing in 2024.

Oakland led Zumper's list of annual rent declines in California cities, with the cost to rent for a one-bedroom unit in the Bay Area community down 9.1% in 2024 compared to the past year. Sacramento took second place with a decrease of 8.1%, followed by Los Angeles in third place with 5%.

SF Allowable Annual Rent Increase

The following annual allowable increase percentages have been effective: March 1, 2024 - February 28, 2025: 1.7% March 1, 2023 - February 29, 2024: 3.6% March 1, 2022 - February 28, 2023: 2.3%

In the Bay Area, the primary reason why we can't build enough housing here is that we've restricted most of the land that you would want to build housing on from development. We have an urban growth boundary surrounding almost every county and city in the Bay Area.