Publications

- October 1, 2015: Vol. 27, Number 9

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Apartment rents are up, but can it last?

by Loretta Clodfelter

It is a good time to be an investor in apartments. Rents are up strongly in markets across the country, according to Zumper, an apartment search service, but especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, where a hot tech market is pumping up the apartment market.

“Zumper National Rent Report: August 2015” finds the highest asking rent in the country is in San Francisco, where the median one-bedroom apartment is offered for $3,500 per month — a 12.9 percent increase over the past year, and more than the median monthly rent in New York City ($3,100), Boston ($2,250), San Jose ($2,230) and Washington, D.C. ($2,150).

The incredibly hot San Francisco market is having knock-on effects on neighboring Oakland, which recorded the highest year-over-year jump at 20.0 percent for a one-bedroom unit ($1,980) and 26.3 percent for a two-bedroom unit ($2,400).

But these sharp increases — buoyed by an improved employment situation and rising wages, as well as a decline in th

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