Rising Rent: San Mateo Leads Bay Area Cities
SAN MATEO (KPIX) -- The cost of rent for apartments in San Mateo between Feb. 2021 and Feb. 2022 grew 16.5 percent, the fastest increase in much of the Bay Area, according to a new report out this week from Apartment List.
"We didn't see much change and then, after a few months, we saw these huge declines, particularly in the most expensive and largest cities," said Patrick Kallerman, vice president of research for the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. "You started to see that folks were starting to realize that they may be on the hook to be in the office at least two to three days."
Apartment List, which helps people find available units in cities across the country, reported that, for March 2022, the 10 largest cities in the Bay Area all had rent price increases. The growth seen locally in the cost of rent is in line with the trend the company has tracked across California and the nation.
"It looks like people are officially returning in droves, right, I mean you know we're nearly back, we're still down five percent but I'd call that nearly back," Kallerman said of employees returning to work at company offices around the Bay Area. "For the vast majority of folks, being back in the office one, two, three, four, five days effectively means you need to have a new home base in the region."
San Mateo had the most expensive rents among those 10 Bay Area cities, with a two-bedroom apartment reaching a median price of $3,220. Rent in San Francisco grew by 15.6 percent over the same one-year period, followed by Union City at 14.9 percent with Berkeley and Redwood City up 13.2 percent from February to February.
"This is certainly one measure that the people are back," Kallerman told KPIX on Friday. "Especially in the near term and going forward, it's probably only going to go up."
WEBLINK: Apartment List San Francisco March 2022 Rent Report
