Apartment Rents Trending Down in Bay Area

Bay Area apartment rents have been falling for the last six months, and are now about 4% below their Q3 2008 peak. That's according to Novato apartment research firm Real Facts, via the San Francisco Chronicle. Real Facts surveys apartment complexes with 50 or more units, and includes everything from studios to four-bedroom apartments in their numbers. Their estimate for the average rent in the nine-county Bay Area was $1,556 for the first quarter of 2009. That's 1.4% lower than their estimate for the first quarter of 2008, and represents the first year-on-year rent decrease in the last four years. Rents in the City were essentially flat on a year-on-year basis -- Real Facts estimates that they fell 0.1%.

My guess is that apartment rents will continue falling for the next several months. The Bay Area is still losing jobs at a rapid pace, and increasing numbers of foreclosed homes are being bought by investors and converted to rentals.