Crystal Chen is marketing manager at Zumper, an online rental platform. I was born and raised in San Francisco and it s crazy to see, Chen said. All I ve seen is rents go up and up. This is the first time I ve ever seen rents go down this much.
Chen said that some of the largest declines are in the tech-heavy Peninsula and the South Bay, in cities like Menlo Park, Mountain View and Santa Clara. We ve seen the pandemic shift the demand for rentals away from really expensive markets toward more affordable cities, Chen said.
Zumper s rental report for the San Francisco Bay Area metro showed that some of the cities with the most expensive rent San Francisco, Mountain View, Cupertino, Palo Alto and Menlo Park have seen huge declines compared to the same time last year. Rents have been steadily declining in major cities during the pandemic.
Residents Struggle With Rent Amid Pandemic
Bay City News Service
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A For Rent sign is shown outside of a property in San Francisco, Sunday, June 21, 2020.Jeff Chiu/Associated Press
By Astrid Casimire
Bay City News Foundation
The Bay Area might now be a buyer s market for apartments, but not for renters like Cecilia Orellana. She has not worked since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and now owes over $13,000 of unpaid rent.
Orellana immigrated from El Salvador in 2001 and her family now lives in the Woodland Park Apartments in East Palo Alto a working-class, majority Latinx community. She lives in a two-bedroom apartment for $2,850 a month with five family members: her husband, sister, son and two nephews.