SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – Things can be more affordable in a group. You can split the cost of your dinner bill, filling up your gas tank, or even paying monthly rent.
“This is the thing, like living with roommates is the most affordable option,” Matt Hutchinson, Director of SpareRoom.com, said. “But even that is becoming a stretch for people at the moment.”
SpareRoom.com is a roommate matching platform based in the UK.
Hutchinson and the company released its second-quarter report on average roommate rents in 26 major U.S. metro areas this month.
“It's expensive across the board, but what we've seen is San Diego has now climbed into the 2nd top spot for US metro areas for roommates,” Hutchinson said. “New York is, and it almost always has been, the most expensive, but San Diego's just overtaken LA into 2nd spot.”
SpareRoom’s report finds the average roommate rent in San Diego is $1,346 a month that’s more than San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Average roommate rent here in San Diego went up four percent from this time last year, when the Q2 numbers were $1,294 for the average roommate rent.
That’s still cheaper than paying for a one-bedroom apartment all on your own, which Apartment.com says costs a little more than $2,400 a month.
“It continues to be a supply and demand issue. Clearly if rents are going up, it's because there is more demand than there is supply right now,” Stephen Russell, President & CEO of San Diego Housing Federation, said.
Russell is the head of the San Diego Housing Federation, which is a non-profit that advocates for affordable housing in America’s Finest City. He said seeing more cranes popping up now could mean better things moving forward.
“So it's good that we have a burst of new activity now of new apartments that will, in future years, be relatively cheaper. They're expensive now because that's what it costs to build them,” Russell said. “But moving forward, once they're built, once their debt begins to be paid down, once they get older, maybe some a little bit obsolete, they will become more affordable.”
