L.A. area now most expensive

SAN FRANCISCO — Southern California’s biggest metropolitan market has supplanted the San Francisco Bay area as the West’s most expensive place to rent an apartment, bolstered by a steadily growing population and a more diverse economy.

As of June 30, apartment owners collected an average monthly rent of $1,336 in Los Angeles and Orange counties — by far the most populous section of Southern California. The rental price represented a 3.7 percent increase from the same time last year, according to RealFacts, a research firm that has been monitoring Western apartment rents since 1989.

In a five-county cluster within the San Francisco Bay area, June apartment rents averaged $1,310 per month, a 1 percent decrease from the same time last year.

None of the other 17 Western markets surveyed by RealFacts have average apartment rents above $1,300. The metropolitan areas surveyed are in California, Washington, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, Arizona, Idaho, Utah and New Mexico.

The rapidly growing Southern California swath of Riverside and San Bernardino counties generated the West’s biggest rent increase. Apartment rents in the region averaged $978 in June, 6 percent higher than last year.

Another slice of the San Francisco Bay area — Silicon Valley — accounted for the West’s largest rent decrease. June rents in Santa Clara County averaged $1,271, a 2.8 percent drop from last year.

California markets filled the top eight spots in the RealFacts survey, out Monday. The most expensive apartment market outside California is Seattle, with an average June rent of $871, up by less than 1 percent from a year ago. With an average monthly rent of $617, Tucson, Ariz., offered the most affordable apartments in the RealFacts study.

Southern California’s emergence as the West’s most expensive rental market partially stems from a change in the government’s definition of metropolitan markets.

Following the government’s guidelines, RealFacts added two more counties — Alameda and Contra Costa counties — to the region that previously defined the San Francisco metro market. RealFacts had previously limited the region to three counties — San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin — with more expensive housing than Alameda and Contra Costa.