Today in ambivalent housing news: Rents in San Francisco, still the highest in the country, may finally be dropping — in the long run, hedged with phrases like “less than nationwide growth,” according to one particular rental site. Good news can become quite thin in transition these days.
Apartment List’s national rent report for April 2016 shows that rents in San Francisco rose a bit last month, up a statistically unimportant 0.3 percent since March, and up a much more significant 1.4 percent since the same time last year.
But that’s still a big decline from last summer’s record-breaking highs, which left everyone still a bit shell shocked even nine to eleven months later. Compared to those sun-scorched, market-pummeled months, rents are down 2.5 percent, and if they continue to stay more or less flat until fall we’ll see a significant year-over-year drop through the upcoming season.