Apartment rental rates are cooling, according to data from Zumper and Apartment List

Monthly apartment rental rates appear to be cooling after a wild ride from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic through most of 2022.

Zumper, a national apartment listing service, reported that the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Diego dropped 6% in February to $2,350 and the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment dropped 5.9% to $3,010.

“It’s good news for San Diego renters,” said Crystal Chen of Zumper. “The true test will be once the economy turns around.”

Apartment List, another listing service, reported no change from January to February in the median monthly rents in apartments it was tracking.

“We’re kind of at this time of year when we transition from the slower holiday season when rent prices go down to moving season when rents tend to rise,” said Rob Warnock, a researcher at Apartment List. “2023 is looking to be a much more steady balanced rental market compared to what we’ve seen over the past couple of years.”

Nevertheless, Warnock said “I feel very confident to say that next month, we’ll see rent prices tick up just a little bit.”

“Right now, there’s just not a lot of people moving because we’re coming off the winter season that’s slow and because so many places are so much less affordable than they were before,” Warnock said. “There’s a lot of financial motivation to not move.

Moving is expensive.”

Rent Ceiling

Chen of Zumper said that she expects “more of a normalization” in rental rates through 2023.

“Expectations are starting to flatten as people are hunkering down in place,” Chen said. “With rising interest rates and inflation, many consumers are rethinking their ideal living situation.”

That’s a big change from the run-up to 2023, when double-digit increases in monthly rental rates were common, peaking in September 2022 when the median monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Diego reached $2,620, Chen said.

“It may be suggesting that a rent ceiling has been hit in San Diego. Rents have been kind of cooling down since that September high,” Chen said.

Seventh Most Expensive Rental Market

Even with the drop in rental rates that Zumper reported, the company still ranked San Diego as the seventh most expensive rental market in the nation. Encinitas had the highest median monthly rental rates in February in San Diego County, according to Zumper, with one-bedroom rents $1,750 and two-bedroom rents at $3,500.

Yet the median rental rate year over year was 12% lower in Encinitas in February 2023 compared to February 2022, according to Zumper.

El Cajon had the lowest median rent in February, at $1,750 for a one-bedroom apartment and $2,140 for a two-bedroom apartment.

The median monthly rates in San Diego were $2,350 for a one-bedroom apartment and $3,010 for a two-bedroom apartment.