NYC Rent Drops For 5th Straight Month, Study Finds (2024)

Real Estate

The Big Apple remains the nation's most expensive city, but San Francisco isn't far behind, a new study found.

Posted Fri, Mar 3, 2023 at 12:06 pm ET

The Big Apple in February kept rising rents at bay for the fifth straight month — so much so that San Francisco crept closer to claiming the ignominious title of most expensive rental city in the nation, according to a Zumper national rent report released Thursday.

The typical one-bedroom in New York cost $3,550 in February, compared to San Francisco's $3,000, the study found. Two-bedrooms in both cities cost $4,000.

San Francisco, in fact, had reclaimed the number two most-expensive slot from Boston as it saw one- and two-bedroom rents rise 1.7 percent and 1.3 percent last month, according to Zumper.

"In New York City, one- and two-bedroom rentals decreased 3.8% and 3.6%, respectively," the study states.

New York City overtook San Francisco as the most expensive rental city in the U.S. during 2021 and barely looked back. Rents for New Yorkers back then were typically about $2,800, and rose sharply since.

By some measures, New York City's apartment prices reached past $5,000 in summer 2022.

But the city's sky-high rent fever appears to have broken in recent months. It still remains far above the national medians of $1,492 and $1,824 for one- and two-bedrooms, but things are looking up — or down — for renters.

The same can't be said for nearby Jersey City, which is the fourth-most expensive rental city in the nation, with median rents of $2,980 and $3,300 for one- and two-bedrooms, respectively, according to Zumper.

"However, one- and two-bedroom rentals have increased significantly in NYC YOY (+14.5% and +21.2%) while one- and two-bedroom rentals YOY in Jersey City have decreased significantly (-6.0% and -18.9%), which may signify just how much rents needed to increase across the Big Apple in order to force the migration out of New York, which has remained atop Zumper’s top 100 list since August 2022," the study states.

Read the full Zumper study here.