Average rents in San Diego County have fallen for six straight months and have reached a milestone not seen since in 15 years.

Rents are down 0.3% year-over-year to an average $2,520 per month in early December, said real estate tracker CoStar. San Diego County has not seen average rent decline on an annual basis since the end of 2010.

Of course, renting in San Diego is still no picnic. Even with a minor reduction, it is still one of the most expensive rental markets in the nation, and there is a lot of variation by area: The biggest drops have been in the expensive areas, like downtown San Diego, while rents have increased in National City and Escondido.

One of the drivers of the rent slowdown is a 5.7% vacancy rate, its highest since 2009. That’s a monumental change in just a few years. In 2021, the vacancy rate fell to 2.64%, the statistical equivalent of someone moving out and a new renter moving in a few days later.

Joshua Ohl, senior director of market analytics for CoStar, said there are a variety of factors driving down rents: Several years of record-breaking apartment construction, local wages not keeping up with housing costs, San Diego having the highest inflation in the country and a comedown after explosive rent growth.

He said the annual rent growth in San Diego County shot up to 11.3% in 2021, compared to about a 3% annual average over the last 25 years.

“We had annual rent growth (in the pandemic) in the double digits,” he said. “We essentially had about four years of rent increases in one 12-month period.”

The slowdown has meant some landlords and property managers are struggling to find renters — something hard to image just a few years ago.

The changing market was evident to small landlord Keith Hackett, who owns three properties with his wife in San Diego County. He put their three-bedroom, two-bathroom condo in South Park for lease for $4,500 in late October but struggled to find a tenant. The 1,380-square-foot high-end condo overlooks a canyon and has three decks, and the price was comparable, or less, to similar rentals in the area.

“This is the first time we really started to stress out,” Hackett said. “There were just no takers.”

He said their two other rentals — single-family homes in Serra Mesa and North Park— in the past 10 years typically received more tenant applications than they knew what to do with. But not this year. Hackett had to lower the rent twice on the South Park condo before finding a tenant in early December for $3,900 a month.

Rental data is a bit of a preview of the economy as most other reports — inflation, unemployment and others — have been delayed because of the recent government shutdown. CoStar has the largest local database with nearly 300,000 apartments and much of it is up-to-the-moment because large landlords often upload prices directly.

Lucinda Lilly, an apartment specialist who consults for several property management firms in San Diego County, said she is in the trenches now with many renters asking for concessions, or rent reductions, to stay in units. She advises landlords to offer concessions because it is still cheaper than leaving an apartment empty for a few months.

“I haven’t seen this type of market since the early- to mid-90s,” said Lilly, who has been in the business since 1986.

Realtor.com recently posted a guide for renters on how to ask for a rent decrease. It suggests emphasizing on-time payments, making the request before the lease renewal is due, offering examples of cheaper rent in the area, explaining changes in personal finances or asking for a longer lease in exchange for a lower monthly rate. It offers this sentence as a suggestion: “I love this place and am looking for a long-term commitment. Unfortunately, my personal finance budget is X. Would you be willing to meet that in exchange for signing a longer lease?”

While economists, business leaders and reporters wait for heavily delayed economic reports for October through November, Lilly said she is seeing real-world examples of a struggling economy. She said she was recently consulting on an Ocean Beach apartment building where a tenant was late on rent but able to prove he was working four jobs. The landlord let the late payment slide.

The number of Americans with multiple jobs hit a record high of 8.8 million in September, said the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The most common scenario was a person with one full-time job and a second part-time job.

The decline in rental prices isn’t just in San Diego County. National rents were down 2.2% annually in November, said real estate website Zumper, which tracks rents by one-bedroom units. New York had the most expensive rent in the nation at $4,330 a month for a one-bedroom. San Diego was in eighth place at $2,250 a month.

CoStar breaks down rents by submarkets to get bigger statistical areas. Some markets might raise eyebrows, like Balboa Park, because it has some of the oldest apartments in the county, which is why its rents — on average — are lower. Here’s how rent breaks down by area, ranked by rent reductions:

Downtown San Diego

Average monthly rate: $2,087, down 1.4% in a year

Vacancy rate: 9.8%

South I-15 Corridor (Sorrento Valley, Miramar, Mira Mesa)

Average monthly rate: $2,986, down 1.2% in a year

Vacancy rate: 4.5%

Central Coast (Pacific Beach, Mission Beach, Ocean Beach, Point Loma, Coronado)

Average monthly rate: $2,402, down 1% in a year

Vacancy rate: 4.9%

North Shore Cities (Del Mar, Encinitas, Solana Beach)

Average monthly rate: $3,462, down 0.9% in a year

Vacancy rate: 3.8%

Mission Valley/North Central (Clairemont, Kearny Mesa, Allied Gardens)

Average monthly rate: $2,849, down 0.7% in a year

Vacancy rate: 6.8%

Balboa Park (North Park, University Heights, Hillcrest, South Park)

Average monthly rate: $2,087, down 0.4% in a year

Vacancy rate: 7.3%

Chula Vista/Imperial Beach

Average monthly rate: $2,442, down 0.4% in a year

Vacancy rate: 6.5%

La Jolla/UTC

Average monthly rate: $3,239, down 0.4% in a year

Vacancy rate: 3.7%

Outlying San Diego County (Julian, Campo, Jacumba Hot Springs, Alpine)

Average monthly rate: $2,078, down 0.2% in a year

Vacancy rate: 6.1%

East County (La Mesa, El Cajon, Grossmont, Rolando Village, Talmadge, College Area)

Average monthly rate: $1,996, unchanged annually

Vacancy rate: 5.3%

North County (Oceanside, Carlsbad, Vista)

Average monthly rate: $2,519, up 0.3% in a year

Vacancy rate: 4.4%

Poway/Santee/Ramona

Average monthly rate: $2,222, up 0.4% in a year

Vacancy rate: 5%

National City/South Central

Average monthly rate: $1,940, up 0.6% in a year

Vacancy rate: 4.2%

North I-15 Corridor (Escondido, San Marcos)

Average monthly rate: $2,496, up 1.5% in a year

Vacancy rate: 5.2%

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