S.F. rent prices are sinking faster than most U.S. cities. How low will they go?

Median rent prices in San Francisco are the lowest they’ve been since mid-2021. Experts say they could decline a bit more as the rental market slows for the winter.

The median one-bedroom asking rent in San Francisco was $2,190 in November 2023, according to data from Apartment List. The last time rent was lower than that was in June 2021, when the city’s prices were moving upward following a pandemic-induced plummet.

Despite some brief summer bumps, San Francisco’s rent prices have never returned to pre-2020 levels. The city’s typical rent in November 2023 was 16.4% lower than the $2,620 in November 2019.

That’s despite growth in rent prices statewide. California’s typical rent of $1,620 in November 2023 was 13% higher than the $1,430 it was four years prior.

Rents usually dip in the fall and winter before climbing in the spring and summer, according to Rob Warnock, senior research associate for Apartment List. People tend to avoid moving during the holidays, he explained, but demand for apartments rises when the weather is warmer and the school season is over — allowing landlords to charge more.

But the main reason San Francisco is seeing lower rents, Warnock said, is that fewer people are looking for apartments there.

“San Francisco is notorious for not creating affordability through new housing supply, but (it) is a perfect example, in some ways, of creating affordability by removing demand from the rental market,” he added.

The city’s rents are particularly low compared to last year, when prices were still partially elevated by a summer surge that didn’t materialize this year. San Francisco’s median one-bedroom rent fell from $2,350 in November 2022 to $2,190 in November 2023. That drop, at 6.7%, was bigger than in nearly any other of the 100 largest United States cities for which Apartment List has data. Only Oakland had a deeper dip.

But San Francisco still had the third-highest rent among the biggest United States cities in November, behind only Huntington Beach and Irvine.

Rents in South of Market and Mission Bay have fallen most steeply over the past year, according to data from housing broker Zillow, which tracks changes in rents at the ZIP code level. Estimated prices increased in just a few areas, such as the 94134, which includes Portola and Visitacion Valley.

Record levels of housing construction have helped temper prices in some parts of the country, Warnock of Apartment List said. And he believes there’s enough development in the pipeline to continue that trend nationally for another year or two.

But San Francisco has long lagged in that area, despite recent efforts by state and city officials to speed up the process. If more companies start requiring workers to return to the office next year, Warnock said, competition between renters could push prices back up.

Reach Christian Leonard: Christian.Leonard@sfchronicle.com