Although San Franciscans face an insanely competitive housing market and rent is absolutely bonkers, residents of the city have always been able to take comfort in the fact that New Yorkers, at least, were paying more for their apartments. That all changed back in August when San Francisco began to overtake New York as the most expensive city in the nation for renters, according to rental website Zumper's monthly rent report. Now, for the fourth month in a row, San Francisco has come out on top. And while New York's rental prices have remained stable in that time, San Francisco's have just continued to head skyward with an 8.8 percent increase over the last quarter.
According to Zumper's figures, the median price for a one-bedroom rental in San Francisco is now $3,350, compared with $3,000 in New York. Those two cities far outpace the third-place city, Boston, where a one-bedroom costs just $2,330. Two-bedrooms in San Francisco are also far more expensive than those in New York, coming in at $4,600 next to New York's $3,500 and seeing the biggest increase in price over the past quarter with a sizable 13.6 percent gain.
Although San Francisco tops New York overall, the most expensive neighborhoods in New York continue to be far more expensive than their counterparts in San Francisco. Russian Hill, at $3,830 per month for a one-bedroom and $5,100 per month for a two-bedroom, is San Francisco's priciest neighborhood, followed by the Financial District, South Beach, the Marina, and SoMa. However, if Russian Hill were in New York, it would be only the sixth most expensive neighborhood, behind places like Tribeca, NoMad, and the Flatiron District.
Although New York has pricier apartments at the top end of the range, there are also many affordable places to live there, primarily in further-flung neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Queens, where the prices of one-bedrooms still don't top $2,000 per month. In more compact San Francisco, that isn't the case, which leads to its overall average coming in at a higher figure.
· November 2014 Rent Report [Zumper]
· Yikes, Are San Francisco's Rents Closing in on New York's? [Curbed SF]