Hey you guys, I don't know if you know this already, but the rent in SF is pretty damn high. Ok, I know you're familiar this fact, but I'm here to tell you that our housing crisis just keeps on one-upping itself.
Data laboratory Priceonomics has just come out with some new information that confirms our worst fears: the rent hikes haven't stopped. We're now at a cool average of $3,600 per month for any sized apartment in this town. Studios clock in at $2,300 and 1-bedrooms at $3,100. Keep in mind this is for the whole city – if you want a 1-bedroom in Hayes Valley or SOMA, be prepared to fork over an extra $500 a month. But trust me, it'll be so worth it because location, location, location.
The only thing more heart attack-inducing than the cost of rent is how fast the it's jumped in the past several years. One year ago, the average San Francisco apartment went for a square $3,000 a month and it has increased by 20% since then. And did you know if you journeyed back to the distant time of 2011, you could get a 1-bedroom in Bernal Heights for about $1,600? Priceonomics says that number is twice as much today. If only our wages and salaries doubled every three years, am I right?
We know the rent is hella high, but the questions of how and why it's that way don't have clear and easy answers. Urban studies think tank SPUR recently held a discussion trying to dissect whether our situation is more of an affordability crisis or a housing bubble. They lean more toward the former because they believe that there is an excess demand of housing and that supply is way too low to satisfy our growing and increasingly wealthy population.
At this point, the subject of rent has supplanted weather as the small talk topic of choice for San Franciscans.
If you're wondering what you could get in SF these days if you could afford the outrageous rent, take a stroll through some of these listings.
[h/t Priceonomics]
Map image via Priceonomics, top image from Thinkstock
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