Apartment Rents Jump Menlo Park, Across Peninsula

When it comes to rising apartment rents across the Bay Area, Menlo Park gives its landlords the largest smile.

Over the past year, rents for one-bedroom apartments in the sleepy midsized Peninsula city that is home to Meta’s corporate headquarters rose 34.8 percent from 2023, the San Francisco Standard reported, citing figures from Zumper.

A typical one-bedroom apartment rents for $3,370 monthly, the second-highest in the region after Mountain View’s $3,440.

Nearby cities that include Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, and Campbell had double-digit annual rent growth.

Crystal Chen, spokeswoman for Zumper, attributed the rent hikes on tech giants like Meta, Apple, and Alphabet requiring workers to return to offices, driving up demand and competition for housing close to their workplaces.

“All the cities that are currently priced above San Francisco, which is now the sixth-most expensive, are either down the Peninsula or in the South Bay,” Chen told the Standard.

San Mateo, South San Francisco and Emeryville saw annual rent decreases of more than 5 percent.

Katherine Hunt, a residential Peninsula broker for Compass, attributed the rental price surge in Menlo Park to its proximity to Stanford and a reputation as a highly desirable bedroom community for Silicon Valley.

“There are plans for multifamily developments downtown that are being contested,” Hunt said. “They call it low-income, but it’s kind of ridiculous to call it that, because it’s really for people with normal income.”

San Francisco, which lost its dubious status as the most expensive Bay Area city for renters in 2023, has also seen rental rate recovery, but at a slower pace. One-bedroom rents in the city rose 4.1 percent over the past year, to a median $3,040.

The one-bedroom median rent in California was $2,095 last month. While rents for a typical one-bedroom rose 8.1 percent in the East Bay city of Dublin, they fell 5.5 percent in Emeryville, 4.8 percent in Alameda, 2.3 percent in Berkeley and 1.6 percent in Concord, according to Zumper.

— Dana Bartholomew