Rents Continued to Rise in March

Average rent prices increased in March by 0.4 percent from February and by 2.7 percent year-over-year, according to new data from Apartment List.

The median price for a two-bedroom apartment last month was $1,300, while one-bedrooms averaged $1,150. All of the top 10 cities with the highest rents were either in California, the Pacific Northwest or the Eastern Seaboard, with San Francisco topping the list with an average two-bedroom rental apartment price of $4,780 per month.

However, San Francisco’s year-over-year rent growth was only 0.9 percent, considerably under the national average. Colorado Springs, Colo., registered the greatest year-over-year rent increase—last month’s $1,010 per month average rent for a two-bedroom apartment was 11.4 percent higher than the March 2015 level. Other cities with higher-than-normal year-over-year rent hikes were Orlando (8.9 percent), Rhode Island’s capital city Providence (8.7 percent) and Tampa (8.6 percent).