The average monthly rent of apartments in California increased substantially 2021, followed by a period of stabilization. In May 2024, the average rent of a two-bedroom apartment cost over 2,200 U.S. dollars, up from 1,849 U.S. dollars in December 2020 before rents started to rise. Nevertheless, not all cities saw rents rise at the same pace.

The average monthly rent in California for a two-bedroom apartment was 2,464 U.S. dollars in 2024, while a one-bedroom unit cost 1,989 U.S. dollars. Only renters who earn the area median income (AMI) can afford two-bedroom housing in California. Rent affordable to renters with full-time jobs at mean renter wage, or 30 percent area median income, was lower than the fair market rent of a two-bedroom and one-bedroom apartment in California, making this housing in this state not affordable for them. The rent in California ranked highest among all other states in the United States for a two bedroom apartment in 2024.

The median rent for one- and two-bedroom apartments in Los Angeles, California, amounted to about 2,057 U.S. dollars in January 2025. Rents soared during the COVID-19 pandemic, with rental growth hitting 16.5 percent in March 2022. This trend has since reversed, with growth turning negative in May 2023. Among the different states in the U.S., California ranks as the second most expensive rental market after Hawaii.

The average monthly rent for all apartment types in the U.S. soared in 2021 and 2022, followed by a slight decline in the next two years. In April 2025, the monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment amounting to ***** U.S. dollars. That was an increase from ***** U.S. dollars in January 2021, but a decline from the peak value of ***** U.S. dollars in August 2022. Where are the most expensive apartments in the U.S.? Apartment rents vary widely from state to state. To afford a two-bedroom apartment in California, for example, a renter needed to earn an average hourly wage of nearly ** U.S. dollars, which was approximately double the average wage in North Carolina and three times as much as the average wage in Arkansas. In fact, rental costs were considerably higher than the hourly minimum wage in all U.S. states. How did rents change in different states in the U.S.? In 2024, some of the most expensive states to rent an apartment only saw a moderate increase in rental prices. Nevertheless, rents increased in most states as of April 2025. In West Virginia, the annual rental growth was the highest, at ***** percent.

VITAL SIGNS INDICATOR List Rents (EC9)

FULL MEASURE NAME List Rents

LAST UPDATED October 2016

DESCRIPTION List rent refers to the advertised rents for available rental housing and serves as a measure of housing costs for new households moving into a neighborhood, city, county or region.

DATA SOURCE real Answers (1994 – 2015) no link

Zillow Metro Median Listing Price All Homes (2010-2016) http://www.zillow.com/research/data/

CONTACT INFORMATION vitalsigns.info@mtc.ca.gov

METHODOLOGY NOTES (across all datasets for this indicator) List rents data reflects median rent prices advertised for available apartments rather than median rent payments; more information is available in the indicator definition above. Regional and local geographies rely on data collected by real Answers, a research organization and database publisher specializing in the multifamily housing market. real Answers focuses on collecting longitudinal data for individual rental properties through quarterly surveys. For the Bay Area, their database is comprised of properties with 40 to 3,000+ housing units. Median list prices most likely have an upward bias due to the exclusion of smaller properties. The bias may be most extreme in geographies where large rental properties represent a small portion of the overall rental market. A map of the individual properties surveyed is included in the Local Focus section.

Individual properties surveyed provided lower- and upper-bound ranges for the various types of housing available (studio, 1 bedroom, 2 bedroom, etc.). Median lower- and upper-bound prices are determined across all housing types for the regional and county geographies. The median list price represented in Vital Signs is the average of the median lower- and upper-bound prices for the region and counties. Median upper-bound prices are determined across all housing types for the city geographies. The median list price represented in Vital Signs is the median upper-bound price for cities. For simplicity, only the mean list rent is displayed for the individual properties. The metro areas geography rely upon Zillow data, which is the median price for rentals listed through www.zillow.com during the month. Like the real Answers data, Zillow's median list prices most likely have an upward bias since small properties are underrepresented in Zillow's listings. The metro area data for the Bay Area cannot be compared to the regional Bay Area data. Due to afore mentioned data limitations, this data is suitable for analyzing the change in list rents over time but not necessarily comparisons of absolute list rents. Metro area boundaries reflects today’s metro area definitions by county for consistency, rather than historical metro area boundaries.

Due to the limited number of rental properties surveyed, city-level data is unavailable for Atherton, Belvedere, Brisbane, Calistoga, Clayton, Cloverdale, Cotati, Fairfax, Half Moon Bay, Healdsburg, Hillsborough, Los Altos Hills, Monte Sereno, Moranga, Oakley, Orinda, Portola Valley, Rio Vista, Ross, San Anselmo, San Carlos, Saratoga, Sebastopol, Windsor, Woodside, and Yountville.

Inflation-adjusted data are presented to illustrate how rents have grown relative to overall price increases; that said, the use of the Consumer Price Index does create some challenges given the fact that housing represents a major chunk of consumer goods bundle used to calculate CPI. This reflects a methodological tradeoff between precision and accuracy and is a common concern when working with any commodity that is a major component of CPI itself. Percent change in inflation-adjusted median is calculated with respect to the median price from the fourth quarter or December of the base year.

The median monthly apartment rental rate for a one bedroom apartment in San Francisco Bay Area was the highest in Mountain View as of May 2023, at nearly 3,500 U.S. dollars. The median monthly rent for a one bedroom apartment in Vallejo, on the other hand, was aproximately 1,600 U.S. dollars per month.

The monthly median asking rent for unfurnished apartments in the United States rose by about ** U.S. dollars in 2024. In the third quarter of 2024, the median rent amounted to ***** U.S. dollars, up from ***** U.S. dollars in 2023. This increase was in line with a decade of steady growth, interrupted only in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and in 2023. The U.S. rental market As rental apartment vacancy rates fall, rents are on the rise. This makes it more difficult for Americans to, first, find an apartment to rent, and second, find an apartment which they can afford. Nevertheless, renting has become much more common in recent years, with the number of renter households having substantially increased in the past two decades. In 2024, there were approximately **** million renter households in the U.S. Rents in different states Of course, rents vary from state to state. The most expensive rents are found in Hawaii, California, District of Colombia, New Jersey, and Florida. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, growth was the strongest in the Sun Belt states, and especially in states with lower costs of living, such as Texas. In Austin, TX, the average rent soared by nearly ** percent in 2021, and remained elevated, despite a slight decline in 2023.

The median rent for one- and two-bedroom apartments in San Francisco, CA, amounted to about 2,620 U.S. dollars at the end of 2023. Rents decreased drastically after the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic - by over 25 percent between December 2019 and December 2020. This trend reversed in 2021, and as of December 2021, the annual rental growth stood at 15 percent. Among the different states in the U.S., California ranks as the second most expensive rental market in 2023.

As of January 2025, the rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Hawaii was about 120 U.S. dollars higher than in California. The states of Hawaii and California ranked as the most expensive within the United States for apartment renters. Conversely, an apartment in Arkansas was almost three times more affordable than one in Hawaii.In 2025, the average monthly rent in the U.S. declined slightly. Nevertheless, in rents increased in most states, with West Virginia registering the highest growth.

In 2024, households in California needed an hourly wage of over 47 U.S. dollars to afford the rent of a two-bedroom apartment. Massachusetts had the second-least affordable two-bedroom apartments, as a household would have to earn at least around 45 U.S. dollars per hour in order to afford rent payments. These figures are considerably higher than the average minimum wage in place in many states. There was no state in which a minimum wage worker could afford rent for the average two-bedroom apartment, if they only worked 40 hours a week. Where are the least affordable counties and metros? The least affordable rents were predominately in Californian counties and metropolitan areas in 2024. District of Columbia has one of the highest minimum wages in the country, which stood at 17 U.S. dollars per hour as of January 2024. Thus, the affordability of two-bedroom apartments highlights how disproportionately high housing costs are in the state.

In California, the estimated fair market rent for a two-bedroom accommodation amounted to 2,464 U.S. dollars in 2024. It was one of the least affordable states in terms of housing that year, as someone would need to earn at least twice the minimum wage to afford a two-bedroom rental unit there.

Renting the typical one-bedroom apartment exceeded 2,500 U.S. dollars in three of United States' cities with population greater than 150,000 people in 2024. In May that year, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Sunnyvale, California was 2,798 U.S. dollars.

The median rent for one- and two-bedroom apartments in Fresno, CA, amounted to about 1,326 U.S. dollars at the end of 2023. Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, median rent has generally increased. As of December 2023, the annual rental growth in Fresno stood at 5.47 percent. Among the different states in the U.S., California ranks as the second most expensive rental market in 2023.

The median rent for one- and two-bedroom apartments in San Jose, CA, amounted to about 2,679 U.S. dollars at the end of 2023. Rents decreased after the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, by 13 percent between March 2020 and March 2021. This trend reversed later that year, and in June 2022, the annual rental growth peaked at 15.6 percent. Among the different states in the U.S., California ranks as the second most expensive rental market in 2023.

The median rent for one- and two-bedroom apartments in Sacramento, CA, amounted to about 1,643 U.S. dollars at the end of 2023. Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, median rent has generally increased. Moreover, in December 2023, the annual rental growth in Sacramento fell by 3.28 percent. Among the different states in the U.S., California ranks as the second most expensive rental market in 2022.

In January 2025, apartment rents recorded an annual growth in most U.S. states. Nevertheless, the national average rent declined by about *** percent. West Virginia was the state with the largest rental increase, while Colorado measured the largest decline. California, one of the most expensive states to rent an apartment, such as California, saw an increase of about *** percent from the previous year. How much should you earn to afford to rent an apartment in different states in the U.S.? Both employment opportunities and the living costs vary widely across the country. In California, which is among the most competitive housing markets in the U.S., the hourly wage needed to afford a two-bedroom apartment rental was roughly ** U.S. dollars, more than twice higher than in North Carolina, Louisiana, or Michigan in 2024. When it comes to the median household income, on the other hand, California does not even make it in the top ten states. How much should you earn to afford a home in some of U.S. largest metros? In 2022, the annual salary needed to buy a median-priced home in the U.S. was ****** U.S. dollars. However, in some of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States, where housing prices are up to two or three times higher, homebuyers would have to earn more than 100,000 U.S. dollars to afford a home. In San Jose, which was the most expensive metro, the annual salary needed for a median-priced home was approximately ******* U.S. dollars.

The median rent for one- and two-bedroom apartments in San Diego, CA, amounted to about 2,274 U.S. dollars at the end of 2023. Rents decreased slightly after the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, but this trend quickly reversed, and in November 2021, the annual rental growth reached its peak, at 21.63 percent. Among the different states in the U.S., California ranks as the second most expensive rental market in 2023.

In District of Columbia, the average rent per square foot was 2.95 U.S. dollars in 2018, whereas renters in Oregon were expected to pay half as much in rent per square foot. DC was the most expensive state for renters, followed by New York, Hawaii, Massachusetts and California.

Why is DC so expensive?

District of Columbia is the center of the U.S. political system with all three branches of federal government sitting there: Congress (legislative), President (executive) and the Supreme Court (judicial). The above average household incomes of its residents mean that high rents are still sustainable for the rental market.

Limited space in DC

DC has the largest share of apartment dwellers in the country. This is most likely due to limited space, as the federal district has a much higher population density than the states. The political importance of DC and the high population density suggest that the federal district is likely to retain its spot as the most expensive rental market in the future.

Among the largest cities in the United States, renting an apartment was most affordable in Wichita, KS, in 2024. On average, renters in Wichita could rent an ***** square foot apartment for ***** U.S. dollars. The average apartment rent varies widely across different metros and states, with Hawaii, California, and Washington D.C. fetching the most expensive rents.

In 2024, Santa Cruz-Watsonville, California, households needed an hourly wage of almost 78 U.S. dollars to afford the rent of a two-bedroom apartment. San Francisco had one of the least affordable two-bedroom apartments, as a household would have to earn at least 64.6 U.S. dollars hourly to afford rent . These figures are considerably higher than the average minimum wage, which is in place in many states. There was no state in which a minimum wage worker could afford rent for the average two-bedroom apartment, if they only worked 40 hours a week.