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 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 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.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 17, 2026. Read the original PDF.