San Francisco’s ‘remarkable’ record rent plunge accelerates in July
As tech workers leave the city, prices fell double digits in July compared to last year
As big technology companies give employees more flexibility to work remotely, rent prices in San Francisco experienced another month of record declines.
Rents for a one-bedroom apartment in the major metro area were down 11.8 percent in July when compared with the same period last year, according to rental site Zumper. That is a record decline and brings the price point down to $3,280.
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Anthemos Georgiades, CEO of Zumper, called the results “remarkable” in a Twitter post, saying it was the first time ever there has been a double-digit year over year decline in rent prices.
The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the United States actually climbed slightly in July.
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Rent declines were even steeper in Mountain View, California, where Google’s headquarters are located (15 percent). Prices dropped 13.5 percent in Facebook’s home, Menlo Park, while they also fell 15.7 percent in Cupertino (where Apple's headquarters is located) and 11.1 percent in Palo Alto.
Twitter and Facebook have given some employees the option to work from home permanently.
July’s data compounds declines reported in June when rents declined 9.2 percent, which was the largest decline since at least 2015.
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Georgiades said the unprecedented drop in prices was the result of two things, the recession brought on by the pandemic and the transition to a future of remote work. The latter, he said, explains why rents in the Bay Area are dropping faster than other major metropolitan areas.
Meanwhile, New York City was experiencing similarly devastating real estate trends. As previously reported by FOX Business, apartment sales in the second quarter dropped by the largest amount in at least three decades, according to data provided by Samuel Miller to Douglas Elliman.
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