By Jorge Casuso

July 2, 2025 -- After a hot start to the year, rents in Santa Monica dropped for the second straight month in June, according to Apartment List's monthly report released Tuesday.

Despite the -0.7 percent drop last month, local rents have increased by 4.1 percent over the past 12 months, outpacing both the State's 1.5 percent rise and the nation's -0.7 percent dip.

Santa Monica's median rent currently stands at $2,372 for a one-bedroom unit and $2,844 for a two-bedroom unit. The citywide apartment vacancy rate is 4.4 percent, a 1.7 percent drop from this time last year.

Researchers have attributed the sudden rise in rents this year to the city's proximity to Pacific Palisades, where wildfires destroyed 6,837 structures in January ("Santa Monica Rents See Slight Increase," April 29, 2025).

But the trend seems to be reversing, reflecting a nationwide trend that has seen rent growth slowing at the time of year when it's typically fastest.

The national median rent increased by only 0.2 percent in June and now stands at $1,401, based on the millions of listings posted on the popular website.

"Year-over-year rent growth had been close to flipping positive for the first time since 2023, but has now ticked further negative for the past two months," according to the report.

In addition, the nationwide vacancy rate for multifamily buildings currently stands at 7 percent, the highest the site has recorded since it started tracking vacancies at the start of 2017.

"We're past the peak of a multifamily construction surge, but the market is still absorbing all of the new units, and vacancies are still trending up," researchers wrote.

The overall median rent in Santa Monica stands at $2,506, which is 13.4 percent higher than the $2,211 median rent for the region, which includes the 27 cities in Los Angeles and Orange counties included in the Apartment List database.

Calabasas remains the most expensive city in the metro region, with a median rent of $3,363, while Long Beach remains the most affordable with a median rent of $1,771.

The metro's fastest annual rent growth is taking place in Pasadena, which saw a 5.4 percent rise in June, while the slowest is in Laguna Niguel, where rents dropped by -4.4 percent.

Nationwide, rent gains are "concentrated in the Midwest and Northeast, while rent declines remain prevalent in the Sun Belt and Mountain West," according to the report.

Apartment List's monthly report "aims to identify transacted rent prices, as opposed to the listed rent prices." For the latest report click here