576 Luxury Apartments for rent in San Diego, CA
February 2020 San Diego Rent Report
Welcome to the February 2020 San Diego Rent Report. San Diego rents remained steady over the past month. In this report, we'll evaluate trends in the San Diego rental market, including comparisons to cities throughout the metro, state, and nation.
February 2020 San Diego Rent Report
Welcome to the February 2020 San Diego Rent Report. San Diego rents remained steady over the past month. In this report, we'll evaluate trends in the San Diego rental market, including comparisons to cities throughout the metro, state, and nation.
San Diego rents held steady over the past month
San Diego rents have remained flat over the past month, however, they are up slightly by 1.3% year-over-year. Currently, median rents in San Diego stand at $1,579 for a one-bedroom apartment and $2,048 for a two-bedroom. San Diego's year-over-year rent growth is level with the state average of 1.3%, but lags the national average of 1.6%.
Rents rising across the San Diego Metro
Throughout the past year, rent increases have been occurring not just in the city of San Diego, but across the entire metro. Of the largest 10 cities that we have data for in the San Diego metro, 9 of them have seen prices rise. Here's a look at how rents compare across some of the largest cities in the metro.
- Carlsbad has the most expensive rents in the San Diego metro, with a two-bedroom median of $2,546; the city has also seen rent growth of 3.6% over the past year, the fastest in the metro.
- National City has the least expensive rents in the San Diego metro, with a two-bedroom median of $1,325; the city has also seen rents fall by 1.3% over the past year, the biggest drop in the metro.
Other large cities nationwide show more affordable rents compared to San Diego
As rents have increased slightly in San Diego, a few other large cities nationwide have also seen rents grow modestly. Compared to most similar cities across the country, San Diego is less affordable for renters.
- Rents increased slightly in other cities across the state, with California as a whole logging rent growth of 1.3% over the past year. For example, rents have grown by 1.3% in San Jose, 0.5% in Los Angeles, and 0.0% in San Francisco.
- San Diego's median two-bedroom rent of $2,048 is above the national average of $1,193. Nationwide, rents have grown by 1.6% over the past year compared to the 1.3% rise in San Diego.
- While San Diego's rents rose slightly over the past year, many cities nationwide also saw increases, including Phoenix (+3.7%), Austin (+3.3%), and Dallas (+2.4%).
- Renters will generally find more expensive prices in San Diego than most other large cities. For example, Phoenix has a median 2BR rent of $1,101, where San Diego is more than one-and-a-half times that price.
For more information check out our national report. You can also access our full data for cities and counties across the U.S. at this link.
Methodology - Recent Updates:
Data from private listing sites, including our own, tends to skew toward luxury apartments, which introduces sample bias when estimates are calculated directly from these listings. To address these limitations, we’ve recently made major updates to our methodology, which we believe have greatly improved the accuracy and reliability of our estimates.
Read more about our new methodology below, or see a more detailed post here.
Methodology:
Apartment List is committed to making our rent estimates the best and most accurate available. To do this, we start with reliable median rent statistics from the Census Bureau, then extrapolate them forward to the current month using a growth rate calculated from our listing data. In doing so, we use a same-unit analysis similar to Case-Shiller’s approach, comparing only units that are available across both time periods to provide an accurate picture of rent growth in cities across the country.
Our approach corrects for the sample bias inherent in other private sources, producing results that are much closer to statistics published by the Census Bureau and HUD. Our methodology also allows us to construct a picture of rent growth over an extended period of time, with estimates that are updated each month.
Read more about our methodology here.
About Rent Reports:
Apartment List publishes monthly reports on rental trends for hundreds of cities across the U.S. We intend these reports to be a source of reliable information that help renters and policymakers make sound decisions, and we invest significant time and effort in gathering and analyzing rent data. Our work is covered regularly by journalists across the country.
We are continuously working to improve our methodology and data, with the goal of providing renters with the information that they need to make the best decisions.