The San Francisco Bay Area Is Now the Only Place Still Enjoying A Pandemic Rent Discount

Now two full years into the COVID-19 pandemic, pandemic-related rent discounts are, for most renters, a thing of the past. Even in parts of the country that experienced massive rent cuts in 2020, price inflation in 2021 has pushed rents back above pre-pandemic levels. Metropolitan areas like Seattle and Boston saw prices sink more than 20 percent in the immediate wake of the pandemic, but those savings are now gone. Other metros across the Sun Belt have experienced nothing but price growth, virtually uninterrupted for the last two years.

As of April 2022, there are only two major metropolitan areas where prices remain below pre-pandemic levels: San Francisco and San Jose, neighboring metros that are home to Silicon Valley and some of the most expensive rental markets in the country.

In San Francisco metro, the median rent was $2,182 in March 2020 and now stands at $2,119 (-3.3 percent). In San Jose metro, the median was $2,465 just before the pandemic and is $2,281 today (-1.3 percent).

Use the interactive map below to compare today's prices with pre-pandemic levels in more than 100 large metros. Complete data are available in the table at the bottom of this page, and for historic rent data covering various geographic levels, see our data download page.

Complete Metro-level Data