Renters may find moving a few stops down a Metro line could mean hundreds of dollars saved in rent per month, new research suggests.
Apartment listing site RentHop crunched the numbers and found that while median rent prices are booming near Metro stops in D.C.’s central business district, there’s a silver lining for area residents searching for a way to cut spending.
“You can, in fact, save a few hundred dollars by traveling an extra stop,” RentHop said on its website. “Sometimes, this is because the stops are in different neighborhoods, rents fell at one stop, prices soared at the other, or all of the above.”
RentHop’s study and suggestions were based on median listed prices, and did not take into account other factors including apartment age and size, utilities and neighborhood.
“It’s also possible that apartments near a particular stop aren’t apples-to-apples with the apartments just one stop away,” RentHop added.
As a rule of thumb, rents get more expensive the closer to a Metro station an apartment unit is — plus, RentHop’s study reveals median rent went up around 65 of Metro’s 91 stops from 2018 to 2019 by an average of 2.4%. Last year, rents went up around 50 Metro stops. Meanwhile, median rents went down around only 19 Metro stops, down from 35 in 2018.
Median rents near Farragut North station saw the most significant hike in that period, with a 10.9% increase over 2018, making for a $2,550 average rent per month in 2019. The hikes near Farragut North were mostly driven up by a new high-end condo building that’s for rent at 1745 N St. NW, less than 0.4 miles away from the stop.
Dupont Circle, Southern Avenue, Arlington Cemetery and Benning Road also saw some of the steepest climbs in rest costs over the last year.
On the other end of the list, rent near the Rhode Island Avenue station saw the biggest year-over-year decreases along the Metro system, with rents dropping by 7.2% for a median monthly price of $1,995 in 2019. Median rents at Gallery Place, Waterfront and Twinbrook also fell.
After determining which stations saw the biggest hikes and drops in rents, RentHop offered some suggestions for commuters looking to trade in extra commute time for lower rent. In some cases, that meant moving just one stop down the line:
- Orange Line commuters near Stadium-Armory, where the median rent is $2,300, could save $1,125 by moving across the Anacostia River near the Minnesota Avenue station, where median rent is only $1,175.
- Orange Line commuters in East Falls Church, where the median rent is $2,000, could save $400 by moving near West Falls Church, where median rent costs $1,600.
- Green and Yellow Line commuters can save $325 by moving from U Street, where the median rent costs $2,225, west to near the Columbia Heights station, where median rent costs $1,900.
See an interactive, station-by-station map of rent costs near the Metro system below, courtesy of RentHop:
