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# Santa Monica rents edge up in July but stay below year-ago levels
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/santa-monica-rents-edge-up-in-july-but-stay-below-year-ago-levels/
- Published: 2026-08-17T18:59:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-17T18:58:59.000Z
- Author: Maaz Alin
- Tags: Real Estate & Housing, Santa Monica

Santa Monica rents ticked up in July, though prices remain lower than they were a year earlier.

The median rent in Santa Monica rose 1.4% over the course of July to $2,405, according to Apartment List's August 2026 rent report. The increase came in a market that has spent much of the past three years in retreat.

Even with the gain, rents are down 2.7% from a year earlier, leaving Santa Monica behind both the state and the nation. Rents across California climbed about 1.5% over the past 12 months, while the national median slipped 1.1%, the report said.

By unit type, [Apartment List](https://www.apartmentlist.com/?ref=smdp.com) pegged the median one-bedroom in Santa Monica at $2,276 and the median two-bedroom at $2,729.

The city's rents have fared better in 2026 than in the same period a year earlier. Seven months into the year, rents have risen 1.1% — compared with a 0.2% decline through July 2025.

The gains follow several down years. Santa Monica rents surged during the pandemic rebound, jumping 12.4% in 2021 and 9.8% in 2022 before reversing course. Prices then fell 6.4% in 2023, 0.9% in 2024 and 3.1% in 2025.

The median also remains below its recent high. Apartment List's city series shows it reached about $2,527 in March 2025, roughly $120 above July's figure.

Santa Monica remains one of the pricier corners of the Los Angeles area. Its $2,405 median sits 9.6% above the metro-wide figure of $2,194, according to Apartment List. Across the broader metro, rents were down 1% over the year — a shallower decline than Santa Monica's, which fell faster over the past 12 months than the metro as a whole.

Among the 29 Los Angeles-area cities the firm tracks, Newport Beach is the most expensive, with a median rent of $3,396, while Inglewood is the most affordable at $1,664\. The fastest annual rent growth is in Aliso Viejo, at 6.3%, and the slowest is in Pomona, where rents fell 5%.

The regionwide picture was mixed. Rents fell over the past year in nearby Culver City, down 2.8%, and Glendale, down 3.1%, while they climbed in cities such as Brea, up 4.2%, Calabasas, up 2.5%, and Fullerton, up 1.8%. Others were essentially flat, including Anaheim, down 0.2%, and Huntington Beach, up 0.3%. Over just the past month, several markets gained ground, among them Brea, up 1.9%, and Burbank, up 1.3%.

The pullback in [Santa Monica](https://www.smdp.com/council-to-weigh-three-paths-for-shielding-expo-bundy-area-from-state-housing-law/) has come alongside a rise in empty units. Apartment vacancy in the city climbed to 5.3% in May, up 1.4 percentage points from a year earlier, according to Apartment List.

The firm builds its estimates from Census Bureau data, projecting them to the current month using its own listing figures and a same-unit analysis, an approach it says tracks closely with government statistics.

Whether July's increase marks a turn or a brief pause, Santa Monica's rents remain below where they stood a year ago, and well above the region's median.