Report: San Francisco apartments grow, others shrink in last decade

The average apartment in San Francisco has grown by 59 square feet over the last decade, making it the largest increase among major U.S. cities, according to a new report from RentCafe.

The current average size of new apartments in the city is 716 square feet, up from 657 square feet a decade ago, that’s an 8% increase that bucks the trend of shrinking rentals in other major urban hubs.

Why the unexpected elbow room? San Francisco's increase is mainly driven by a shift in unit mix: 

• Studios grew by 70 square feet, on average
• Three-bedroom apartments grew by 35 square feet
• Meanwhile, one- and two-bedroom units slightly shrunk in size 

For comparison, Queens, New York ranks second with a 39-square-foot gain, but San Francisco clearly leads the charge toward more livable, well-proportioned spaces in dense cities, the report notes.  

What about other Bay Area cities? 

 Not all of them are following the same path. In fact, nearby hubs are seeing the opposite trend: 

• San Jose apartments shrank by 40 square feet over the past decade, now averaging 854 square feet, a 5% decrease.
• Oakland apartments lost even more space, with a 58-square-foot drop over 10 years, bringing the average size down to 781 square feet, a 7% decrease.