San Jose’s Eight-Month Rent Growth Streak Comes to an End

In August, the rent growth streak in San Jose’s apartment market ended, with effective asking rents ticking down 0.1% month-over-month. Rents in San Jose had picked up in each of the previous eight months, with no other large market recording consistent pricing gains during that period. Combined with prior monthly increases, rents in San Jose rose 3.4% in the year-ending August, according to data from RealPage Market Analytics. That gain was quite different from the national average decline of 0.2% and tied with Pittsburgh as the third-largest increase among nation’s 50 largest markets. However, San Jose is prone to big shifts in rents. In fact, San Jose has witnessed some of the most volatile rent change performances among the nation’s 50 largest markets. During the 10 calendar years leading up to the pandemic (2010-2019), annual rent change in San Jose ranged from decline of 2.2% to a hike of 12.2%.