Apartment Rents in California Fall 2.4% in a Year

Apartment rents in California, which shot up during the pandemic, are falling.

Average rents across the Golden State fell to $1,958 a month in August, a 2.4 percent drop from the same period last year, the Orange County Register reported, citing ApartmentList.com data. At the same time, rents across the U.S. fell 1.2 percent.

The California decline in rents represents the biggest drop since March 2021 as pandemic lockdowns roiled the economy.

The dip may be a relief to tenants, whose typical rents have risen statewide at an annual rate of 4.6 percent over the past four years.

The decline follows an uptick in apartment vacancies, according to the Register.

The statewide vacancy rate was 5.1 percent for the third month in a row in August, up from 4 percent a year earlier. That’s the biggest number of available rentals since March 2021. The U.S. apartment vacancy rate last month was 6.4 percent.

Apartment vacancies across the state are still below what they were before the pandemic, when they averaged 5.4 percent in 2018-19.

Rents fell in all but one of 15 counties tracked by ApartmentList, with the steepest declines in Northern California.

Average rents fell 4.9 percent in a year to $2,025 in Contra Costa County, 4.5 percent to $2,068 in Alameda County, 4.3 percent to $2,207 in San Francisco and 3.6 percent to $2,478 in San Mateo County.

In Southern California, average rents fell 4.5 percent to $2,031 in Riverside County, 2.4 percent to $1,927 in Los Angeles County, 2.2 percent to $2,443 in Ventura County, 1.9 percent to $1,848 in San Bernardino County and 0.7 percent to $2,643 in Orange County.

Across the state, average rents have risen 17 percent in five years, with Riverside rents up 40 percent and rents in San Bernardino up 38 percent since 2018.

— Dana Bartholomew