Bad news for tenants: Bay Area rents are still ris...

A new report dissecting rent trends across the Bay Area is filled with bad news for tenants. With a handful of exceptions, today’s rents are higher in most of the region’s cities than they were a year ago.

The fastest rent growth was in Concord, where year-over-year rents were up 7.3 percent, according to the report from the ApartmentList.com website. A median two-bedroom apartment in Concord now rents for $3,010 and a one-bedroom fetches $2,400.

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The region’s highest rents are in Cupertino, where a one-bedroom costs $3,990 monthly and a two-bedroom brings $5,000. The cheapest rents are in Oakland, where a one-bedroom costs $1,760 and a two-bedroom rents for $2,210. Almost as cheap is Campbell, where a one-bedroom fetches $1,890 and a two-bedroom goes for $2,370.

Of course, the year-over-year increases are not nearly what they were a couple of years ago, when debilitating double-digit increases were the norm. But the fact remains: Even so-called modest increases are hard for many renters to handle.

For instance, the year-over-year rent increases in San Jose were up only 3 percent, compared with 2.7 percent nationwide. Yet San Jose’s median rent for a two-bedroom unit — $2,570 — is more than double the national median of $1,160.

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Likewise San Francisco rents were up just 1.8 percent year-over-year, but that doesn’t spell much relief for tenants. A median one-bedroom apartment costs $2,450 while a two-bedroom costs $3,070.

Here and there, rents fell on a year-over-year basis: In Berkeley by 3.2 percent, the biggest drop in the Bay Area; in Daly City by 2.2 percent; and in Campbell by 0.3 percent.

But everywhere else, the trend was up, according to the report.

In Walnut Creek, rents rose 2.6 percent year-over-year, with median one-bedroom units going for $2,410 and two-bedrooms for $3,030.

In August, Alfred Au Yeung, who works in sales for a telecommunications company, bought a Walnut Creed condominium as an investment property. It’s a 1,211 square-foot unit with two bedrooms and two baths: “We’re getting $2,500,” he said, explaining that he and his wife hope one day to retire on the income from this and other rental properties around the region.

“A lot of people are being pushed out of the buyers’ market by the cost of houses” in the Bay Area, he said. “I will always have a renter in place, and I will always have equity.”