Apartment rents tick lower in Fresno. How far have they fallen over the past 12 months?
Average market-rate apartment rents in Fresno ticked downward for the second straight month in April, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily easy for would-be renters to find housing that they can afford.
ApartmentList.com, a San Francisco-based apartment search and data company, reported that the median monthly rent for an apartment in the city of Fresno was $1,316. That’s down by just under 1% from the March estimate of $1,326 per month for rental housing.
The April rate is also about 3% lower than it was a year earlier, in April 2022, when the median estimate came in at $1,357 per month.
The median is the midpoint at which half of market-rate apartments cost more to rent and half cost less.
Among the 100 largest U.S. cities included in the ApartmentList data, rents went up between March and April in 71, were unchanged in one, and fell in 28. Fresno ranked 98th in one-month rent growth in April, in a virtual tie with Oakland. Only one U.S. city experienced a larger percentage one-month decline in rent: New Orleans, at 1.1%.
“Citywide, the median rent currently stands at $1,039 for a 1-bedroom apartment and $1,276 for a 2-bedroom,” the ApartmentList rent report for Fresno stated. “Across all bedroom sizes (i.e., the entire rental market), the median rent is $1,316. That ranks #63 in the nation, among the country’s 100 largest cities.”
“For comparison, the median rent across the nation as a whole is $1,162 for a 1-bedroom, $1,332 for a 2-bedroom, and $1,355 overall,” the report’s authors added. “The median rent in Fresno is 2.9% lower than the national (average), and is similar to the prices you would find in Arlington, TX ($1,330) and Richmond, VA ($1,314).”
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that as of 2021, almost half of Fresno residents lived in rental units rather than in owner-occupied homes.
The ApartmentList data only includes market-rate apartments; it does not include subsidized apartments for low-income renter households. Additionally, rents can vary significantly from one part of a city to another, from one apartment complex to another, and even among apartments within the same complex.
Less expensive than California’s other large cities
While Fresno’s median rent is down from where it was a year ago, the figure is fully $256 per month – or more than 25% – higher than it was in March 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, the median rent for an apartment in Fresno was estimated at $1,060 before going on a steady run of increases into the fall of 2021. Following a modest dip in late 2021, rents peaked at more than $1,400 last summer, and have since stabilized.
Among California’s 10 largest cities in the ApartmentList estimates, Fresno has the lowest median estimated rents, by a significant margin of almost $300 per month compared to the next-lowest cities.
- San Jose: $2,458 per month, up 2.76% from a year ago.
- San Diego: $2,396 per month, up 2.39% from a year ago.
- Anaheim: $2,218 per month, up 0.27% from a year ago.
- San Francisco: $2,191 per month, down 1.17% from a year ago.
- Santa Ana: $2,123 per month, down 2.97% from a year ago.
- Los Angeles: $1,886 per month, down 0.63% from a year ago.
- Long Beach: $1,652 per month, down 0.84% from a year ago.
- Oakland: $1,615 per month, down 5.11% from a year ago.
- Sacramento: $1,607 per month, down 2.49% from a year ago.
- Fresno: $1,316 per month, down 3.02% from a year ago.
What the future looks like for apartments
ApartmentList’s nationwide calculations of apartment vacancies have surpassed pre-pandemic levels and remains in an upward trend. “With a record number of multi-family apartment units currently under construction, some property owners may start struggling to fill vacancies for the first time since the early stages of the pandemic,” the company’s national rent report states.
Lingering concern over a potential economic recession may also be playing into rental dynamics nationwide. “As recession fears continue to grip many Americans, it’s likely that some households are delaying moves, translating to sluggish rental demand,” the report authors said. “And even if demand rebounds over the summer, a robust supply of new inventory hitting the market this year will continue to keep prices in check.”
More multifamily units are under construction in the U.S. than at any time since 1970, the report adds. “As this new inventory continues to hit the market over the course of the year, we may now be entering a phase in which property owners are competing for renters to fill their units, a marked change from the prevailing conditions of the past two years, in which renters have been competing for a limited supply of available inventory.”
