Save Some Cash on Rent for Valentine’s Day?

• Real Estate Tips
• apartments in San Diego County, Linda Moore, Median apartment price in San Diego, Shacking-up Discount, three-bedroom apartments, Top 25 Renting Markets, two-bedroom apartments
• February 13, 2014

Your typical Valentine’s Day would be the cliché flowers, jewelry, dinner and chocolates right? The topic may have risen that you and your significant other are looking to move in with one another to take the next step. Well here’s your opportunity.

According to an article in the San Diego Union-Times, in the festive holiday celebration of Valentine’s Day, Trulia has done a study and ranked how much people could save in the top 25 rental markets if couples decided to move in together. This is what Trulia.com called the ‘Shacking-up Discount.’

Instead of living in one bedrooms by themselves, they could leave and move into a two-bedroom and the couple could save 38 percent of the rent where the median price would be $1,850 per month according to Trulia. Renting a three bedroom actually shows a 19 percent savings over the two significant others renting separate entities.

The calculation was discovered by comparing different-sized apartments in the same builds so that location wouldn’t affect the findings, according to the San Diego Union-Times.

Out of 25, San Diego ranks fifth in the top 25 markets in the nation on rentals. On average a two-bedroom rental apartment is 35 percent less than a three-bedroom, which is 12 percent overall cheaper in the rankings.

Nearly 1.1 million San Diego County households in 2012, and 363,000 of the homes in the foresaid county are recorded at 363,000 are non-family homes according to the U.S. Census report. Women living alone clocked in at 17 percent or a population of 61,800, while 60,307 or 16.6 percent were males living by themselves.

“While Valentine’s Day makes for a clever time hook, people of all ages and genders have moved in together to save money, especially during the Great Recession,” said Director of economic and Market research for Xpera Alan Nevin to the San Diego Union-Times.

“The advent of the dual master two-bedroom unit has allowed that to occur. Virtually every project now has those, and particularly because in the higher-end ones rents have gone up so high people have ot share.”

Sacramento tops the list, where you could grab a two-bedroom for a median price of $1050 per month with the ‘Shacking-up Discount.’ Couples could preserve 40 percent by taking advantage of renting a two bedroom, while a three-bedroom saves 21 percent.  

Other cities like Riverside- San Bernardino, Las Vegas and Baltimore run two-through-four, with San Diego standing at fifth.

New York is the worst, with a median cost of $3,000. Places like Chicago, San Francisco, Houston and Dallas make up the bottom five of this list.

By Linda Moore