Where Are Rents Rising the Most?

When the pandemic set in, rents plummeted in cities across the country as workers and students fled to suburbs and rural areas. The median rent in Manhattan, for example, fell from $3,509 in March 2020 to $2,776 in November 2020, the lowest level in 10 years.

A year later, as renters flooded back in, the housing markets in New York City and other major cities had recovered remarkably well, with rents approaching, equaling or even surpassing prepandemic levels. Some New York renters who signed leases when rents were at their lowest saw 30 or 40 percent increases at the end of 2021.

A recent rent report by Zumper, the online rental listing platform, examined the median rents for one- and two-bedroom apartments in major cities, and for the most part they rose everywhere — in some cases reaching all-time highs. Zumper’s data form the basis of this week’s chart, which focuses on one-bedroom units.

Not every city rebounded quickly. In late 2019, San Francisco’s median rent for a one-bedroom was $1,300 higher than Boston’s. In January 2021, the median had fallen by 23 percent in San Francisco and by 19 percent in Boston. By January of 2022, San Francisco’s median had risen only about 6 percent, while Boston’s gained 24.5 percent, closing the median one-bedroom rent gap between the cities to just $130 a month.

San Francisco was an anomaly — many of its tech workers embraced remote work, keeping demand for apartments and their rents down. Nationally, median one-bedroom rents rose 12 percent over the year to a new high of $1,374 in January, according to Zumper’s report, and the median rent rose by 20 percent or more in 59 of the 100 cities studied.

This week’s chart shows the cities with the highest median one-bedroom rent, and those in which they rose the most over a year, according the report.