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San Francisco renters are getting squeezed as the city’s booming artificial intelligence industry helps send apartment prices to staggering new heights.
The median asking rent for a one-bedroom apartment climbed to a record $4,430 in October, a whopping 26.2% increase from a year earlier, according to Zumper’s latest national rent report.
That’s roughly $920 more per month than renters were paying a year ago — or more than $11,000 in additional rent annually at those prices.
And those looking for more space aren’t getting much relief.
The median two-bedroom apartment now commands $6,320 a month, up an even steeper 27.9% year-over-year. Although that’s a slight dip from September’s record $6,340, it still translates to nearly $76,000 a year in rent alone.
San Francisco posted the fastest annual one-bedroom rent growth among the 100 largest US cities tracked by Zumper, as its resurgent technology sector drives demand for housing in a city already struggling with limited supply.
The latest figures extend a months-long surge in the notoriously expensive market. In September, one-bedroom rents had already reached a then-record $4,400, representing a 25.4% annual increase.
Just a month later, prices have climbed even higher.
The sharp rise has coincided with the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence companies, whose well-paid workers are competing for apartments near the city’s growing concentration of AI startups and established tech firms.
Zumper attributed the city’s extraordinary rental growth in part to AI-sector hiring, which has created new housing demand at a time when relatively few new homes are being built.
The frenzy has also spilled into the city’s luxury housing market. Newly wealthy AI executives and investors have fueled a mansion shortage, with some properties attracting as many as 50 offers and even buyers armed with $25 million in cash getting outbid.
But the supply crunch has been years in the making.
The AI-fueled wealth boom could intensify further, with San Francisco-based Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, filing paperwork Monday for a blockbuster IPO that could value the company at up to $2 trillion and potentially mint a new wave of wealthy tech employees, adding further pressure to the city’s already overheated housing market.
San Francisco added a net 2,669 housing units in 2025, about 26% below its 10-year annual average of 3,622, according to the city’s Planning Department.
The city also remains well behind its longer-term housing goals, with only about 12% of its required housing production target for the 2023-to-2030 planning period authorized or otherwise projected by the end of last year.
The rental surge also stands in stark contrast to the relatively subdued national market.
Across the country, median one-bedroom asking rents rose just 0.5% annually to $1,519 in October, while two-bedroom rents edged up 0.7% to $1,901, according to Zumper.
The national increases were the strongest annual readings for both apartment types since May 2025, but remained modest compared with San Francisco’s double-digit gains.
Zumper’s report tracks asking rents across more than 1 million active listings in the nation’s 100 largest cities.