Where are the cheapest apartments in California? Valley cities lead the way
Nine of the 10 California cities with the lowest average rental prices for apartments last month are in the San Joaquin Valley, as the interior of the state continues to boast the most affordable rents compared to coastal and urban regions.
Fresno, the state’s fifth largest city, had the seventh lowest average rental cost in January 2020, according to data compiled by RentCafe.com. The average market-rate rent for an apartment in the city was estimated at $1,116 per month, about $61 per month more than a year earlier.
Meanwhile, in Merced County, the city of Atwater ranked third in the state for cheap rents, with an average of $1,046 per month. The city of Merced ranks fifth, at $1,078 per month for rent. A year ago, Atwater’s average rent was about $1,015, while Merced came in at $1,031 per month, according to RentCafe estimates.
The RentCafe.com data does not count subsidized apartments for low-income residents or smaller apartment complexes of less than 50 units. The monthly reports also make no distinction on the square footage or number of bedrooms in apartment units. The January report includes 77 cities in which apartments represent a significant volume of the available housing.
Madera, just up Highway 99 from Fresno, not only had the lowest average rent cost in the state, but was the only California city with rents under $1,000 per month. Rounding out the 10 cities with the lowest rents in January are:
Lemoore: $1,002 per month.
Bakersfield: $1,056 per month.
Hanford: $1,104 per month.
Victorville: $1,155 per month.
Visalia: $1,158 per month.
Clovis: $1,171 per month.
At the other end of the rental spectrum was the San Francisco Bay Area, with the seven most expensive rental markets in the state. San Francisco topped the list at $3,700 per month, and was also the second-highest rent in the U.S. behind the borough of Manhattan in New York City.
Other Bay Area cities at the top of the rental price list are San Mateo, $3,294 per month; Sunnyvale, $2,975 per month; Oakland, $2,935 per month; Santa Clara, $2,897 per month; San Jose, $2,719 per month; and Daly City, $2,618 per month.
While apartments in Fresno and the Valley tend to cost far less to rent than much of the rest of California, rent affordability remains a concern for many renters in the region, not only low-income families. About 60% of renters in Fresno County are considered “rent burdened” under federal guidelines because they pay at least 30% of their gross income on rent and related utilities.
In Merced County, data from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2018 indicates that out of about 38,200 rental households, nearly half – 47.6% – pay at least 30% of their income on rent, including almost 8,700 rental households who paid more than half of their income for rent.
Median income levels in the Valley generally lag California’s average, and the region also has a higher rate of people living in or near poverty then the state as a whole.
This story was originally published February 25, 2020 at 12:28 PM.
