Jersey City was once a lower-priced urban alternative to New York City for young professionals, but rents are spiking in the Hudson County town as rental demand soars. Renters there are also seeing space tighten with each new development.
According to the latest RentCafe.com report, new apartments in Jersey City now average 790 square feet, making them the 17th-smallest in the U.S. That follows an 88-square-foot drop over the past decade — an 11% decline keeping with the trend of building smaller, more efficient rentals in dense urban markets.
Detroit, for decades a symbol of urban blight, has rebounded. The Motor City had the seventh-smallest new apartment size at 728 square feet, and had the biggest reduction among the top 20, shrinking 184 square feet, or 25%, over the last 10 years.
The smallest new apartments are located in the Northwest — Seattle (649 square feet) and Portland (668). All but five of the metros with the smallest new apartments are on either the East or West Coast.
Only four in the top 20 markets with the smallest new apartments had an increase in square feet. Three were in New York City (Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan); the other was in San Francisco.
What’s behind the drop in size?
- Studios saw the biggest decrease, shrinking by 167 square feet. They represent 16% of new units.
- One-bedrooms, the most common layout (57%), lost 40 square feet.
- Two-bedrooms are slightly smaller than before, and three-bedrooms remained the same in size, but their share of new construction has been cut in half.
For renters, this means modern apartments may look newer and sleeker, but will feel more compact, especially studios or one-bedrooms.
RentCafe.com is a nationwide apartment search website.
