[dthal]

Note that Zumper is not a reliable source for median rent data. CityObservatory wrote an article about their data problems a few years ago [1]. Zumper's data is, of course, based on apartments that are for rent and doesn't include currently occupied units. That alone skews high, especially when there is a lot of higher-rent new construction hitting the market. Also, it looks like Zumper's data skews towards higher-end neighborhoods.

For a broader look at the rental market, including occupied units and rent-controlled units, you could just consult ACS data. That says that median rent for all occupied 1-bedrooms in San Fransisco was $1912 in 2017 [2].

[1] http://cityobservatory.org/journalists-should-be-wary-of-med...

[2] https://censusreporter.org/data/table/?table=B25031&geo_ids=...

[fountainofage]

I guess it depends on what question you're asking. You seem to be pointing out that you think the real question is: "what is the median rent for anyone living in San Francisco?" whereas Zumper seems to be more answering the question: "if someone moved to San Francisco today, and has zero connections, what rent would they pay?" Both are valid questions, but I think it's good to set the context for if you're having a conversation about "general median rent" vs "newcomer median rent."

[ehsankia]

Even then, it's not as clear. First off, median caries the implication that these are all "valid" places, whereas in reality, most apartments that are still up for grabs probably aren't rented for a reason, therefore including them in a median is misleading.

Next up, the data itself needs to be "fresh" for this to work. It could be that cheaper apartments appear on the market frequently, but are rented right away. So as someone new in the city, you could find these cheap places if you looked for a bit, but a single survey will probably not catch these.

A better approach would be to look at the median of all new rented apartments throughout the year. That will give you an idea of what someone who comes to the city will realistically pay.

[Zanni]

My first thought, on reading the source of the data, is that the article was probably prompted by a press release from Zumper. I don't know this, but if reporting a record high gets them press for their app, they'll certainly be biased towards finding a record high. What a poorly sourced article.

[dthal]

From that CityObservatory article:

  Zumper has also made a name for itself through its “National Rent Reports”
  —more or less monthly press releases that claim to track median rental prices around the country. 
  These reports have received copious media coverage, from the Bay Area to Seattle to Nashville to Chicago to Boston to LA to Miami to Denver, and so on.

[johnvanatta]

Paul Graham wrote a great essay on this:

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

From what I've seen, it's definitely true, most "news" is at least influenced by PR firms. Part of why (now old school) blogs are so refreshing to read in contrast. I remember working at a startup, and our marketing person once asked the engineers to do some quick data analysis to get a soundbite just like this.