One of its catalogs is the one-bedroom apartment with a renovated kitchen and bathroom in San Francisco’s Nob Hill neighborhood. It rents for $ 2,000 a month. Which is 25 per cent less than last year. And, the first month is free. It has two units available in an eight-unit building on Washington Street.
“(They are) 600-650 square feet. Nice, classic San Francisco apartments. At any other time, they would have been rented immediately,” Miskens says.
Crystal Chen is an analyst with a rental website jumper. He says 2020 was a year of unprecedented reductions in fares for the two areas.
Related: San Francisco 31% lower rental prices keep residents moving for more space, cheaper housing amid epidemic
According to Zamper, San Francisco had the biggest drop in one-bedroom apartments in the entire country. Rents are down 23 percent. Auckland is down 19 percent and San Jose is down 15 percent.
“Rental preferences have really moved away from big city amenities like nightlife and going out,” Chen explains.
But many predict that tenants will start moving back to the Bay Area in 2021, especially in cities like San Francisco. Lower rents mean they can move back to what was previously priced.
“I’ve spent the last 10 years moving people from (San Francisco) to Auckland. And in the last eight months, people have been moving from Auckland back to San Francisco. It’s a shift,” Maskens says.
Chen expects even bigger shifts this summer, once more people are vaccinated and life becomes “normal”.
Related: San Francisco sees record-breaking drop in rental prices amid epidemic, according to jumper data
“I’m sure there will be people going back to the city, I don’t think it will be as expensive and crazy as before the epidemic,” says Chen.
There are current homeowners on the flip side.
Many are struggling due to falling rental prices and still having a large number of vacancies.
Related: How does Covid-19 affect Bay Area housing? Is the weight of the expert
A small car rally was organized by Chinatown in San Francisco to protest the California evacuation deadline by the Bay Area Homeowners Network or BAAHN.
Jenny Zhao owns several condos in South Bay. Her husband lost his job due to the epidemic. With the tenants behind the payment, she says her family is having trouble.
“We have to pay the mortgage, we have to do the maintenance, we have to repair the buildings. So, how can we survive?” Says Zhao.
He says he understands the plight of many tenants due to the epidemic, but says there needs to be more equality around the law.
Despite the difficulties on both sides, the Mascans have remained optimistic.
“I think (San Francisco) will get better in the long run after all this, because it needs to recover. For everyone, I think it will get better,” he says.
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