Colder than Buffalo: See where demand for Sacramento’s once wild rental market ranks
It’s more difficult to find an apartment in Buffalo, New York, than it is a rental in Sacramento.
The capital region was once among the toughest rental markets in the nation, as Bay Area residents flooded here during the pandemic in search of relatively affordable housing. Prices skyrocketed, surpassing those found in some of the county’s largest cities.
But the Sacramento region didn’t crack the top 20 of RentCafe’s hottest big markets in the nation for the first three months of 2023. In fact, Sacramento was only the ninth-hottest market in California by RentCafe’s calculation, which used apartment occupancy rates, the average number of days rentals sit on the market, renewal rates, new apartments constructed and the number of prospective renters competing for units to determine a market’s standing.
Sacramento’s competitive score also trailed many small and mid-sized markets, including Buffalo; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and Fayetteville, Arkansas.
The interactive map below shows the change in median rent for most of the ZIP codes in the Sacramento region, according to new data from RentHub. The map shows the median rent has gone up just .34% over the last year, with the largest increases in Del Paso Heights, Oak Park and Rio Linda.
