Like the rest of the country, the Northern Virginia rental market continues to evolve as the dust settles from the pandemic and new norms take hold. Few areas have witnessed more fluctuating costs than Arlington, where the median price of rent declined 1.6 percent month-over-month, according to a recent survey by Apartment List that analyzed the nation’s 100 most expensive cities to lease an apartment.
And while Arlington’s dip in rent prices — a rate twice the national average and 17th sharpest drop overall — certainly signals good news for prospective renters, Arlington’s current median rent of $2,145 for all apartment sizes still ranks 10th among the country’s 100 most expensive markets and 60 percent higher than the national average of $1,344.
The median cost of living in Arlington is also 12.7 percent higher than the $1,903 monthly average of the Washington Metro area. Tysons Corner, which was not included in the top 100 list, came in as the most expensive locale in the DC area with a median monthly rent of $2,168.
The most significant year-over-year cost increase in Northern Virginia, meanwhile, came in Leesburg, where the median cost of rent surged 9.5 percent.
Year-over-year, Arlington saw a 4.3 percent increase in the median cost of rent, the report indicated, still well below the staggering post-pandemic timeframe that saw prices spike 16.7 percent between January and December 2021.
In all, 90 of the 100 surveyed cities saw rental prices drop month-over-month. Both Atlanta, Georgia, and Austin, Texas, experienced similar 1.6 percent month-over-month declines. For this survey, Apartment List considered the county to be a city.
Arlington’s current median cost of rent is most comparable to San Francisco ($2,196 per month) and Moreno Valley, California ($2,121), the report found.
Irvine, California, ranked 1st on the list of most expensive cities with a median rent of $3,067 per month. On the opposite end of the list, the median rent in Cleveland, Ohio, was just $781.
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