Recently we reported the most unwelcome news that the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco surpassed the price for a one-bedroom in New York for the second month straight. Now the rental website Lovely has calculated the median for apartments of all sizes in SF and found that we've beaten—ahem, lost to—New York across the board. The report, which covers data from the third quarter of this year, placed the median for apartments of all sizes in San Francisco at $3,488, which is more than a $200 jump since the last report, in July, and a whopping $688 over New York's. As if that's not enough to freak out over, in Lovely's tally of the nation's top 30 cities with the highest median rents, 7 of the top 10 are in the Bay Area.

Palo Altans have the highest median rent in the country: $3,645/month. Cupertino also beat out New York, with a median of $3,136/month clearing New York's $2,800/month. That's historically low for NY, by the way: Lovely notes that this is the first time this year that New York's median has fallen below $3,000.



Between the second and third quarters, San Francisco's rent-price growth increased modestly, from 2.66 percent in June to 3.38 percent in September. Most of the growth focused on Oakland, which saw a whopping 19.35 percent price hike year over year, outstripping June's already uncomfortably high jump of 12.12 percent over the same period in 2013. The rent increases in San Jose, by contrast, were growing more slowly than they were back in June.



The neighborhoods with the steepest median rents in the third quarter were Presidio Heights, Dogpatch, Cow Hollow, Russian Hill, and Noe Valley. We have to wonder if Presidio Heights' rather astounding median of $5,100, up more than $800 from three months ago, is the result of some outlier listings in a neighborhood primarily known for single-family homes.

The areas with the lowest median, meanwhile, were the Outer Sunset, Visitacion Valley, Ingleside, Oceanview, and Mission Terrace—the last two with median rents that (mercifully?) didn't clear the $2,000 mark.

· For the Second Month Straight, SF's Median Rent Tops NY's [Curbed SF]

· Mapping the Median Rent of a One-Bedroom in San Francisco [Curbed SF]

· Lovely [Official Site]

· Double-Digit Rent Growth Tires of SF, Follows You to Oakland [Curbed SF]