The arrow is still pointing up, but Bay Area rental prices are steadying.
A new survey from Rent Café shows the average rent in the Bay Area is just about where it was a year ago, and experts say not to expect a big drop any time soon.
San Jose had the smallest rent increase in the Bay. As new construction went up, so did the number of people who decided things got too expensive and moved out.
Prices haven’t gone down, but rental prices are allowing down after years of going up an average of 10% each year. The newest figures show Bay Area rents up just over 1% from last year.
San Francisco and Oakland rents gained more than 2% but for San Jose, almost flat for 2019.
“The biggest contributor is that there’s a lot of inventory hitting the market right now,” said Matt Dinapoli, real estate professor at Santa Clara University. “People want to live where they work.”
Dinapoli said more housing built means cheaper housing.
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Another factor is that more people are leaving the Bay Area.
“You have people leaving San Jose, often going to other areas, trying to find housing that’s more within their affordability,” said Dinapoli.
Though prices are slowing, experts say not to expect big drops any time soon.
“We’re in the middle of Silicon Valley, people want to live where they work,” said Dinapoli.
As long as there’s job growth without enough new construction to house all those people, its expected rental prices to stay high for some time.
