Housing Watch: Price difference between renting homes and apartments in Valley

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Rental prices in the Fresno area have relaxed a bit, but they can still raise eyebrows.

A 2-bedroom house listed in the Tower District rents for $1,900 a month.

A rental service called Dwellsy broke down national rental rates of both apartments and single-family homes around the US.

"For Fresno, it seems like a relatively imbalanced market in comparison to some places," says Dwellsy CEO Jonas Bordo. "We're seeing single-family rentals at about a $1,700 price point for median priced single family, which is largely unchanged. It's only $20 difference from a year ago."

In September, the median rental price of a single-family home in Fresno was $1,713 a month, while the median price for an apartment was $1,605.

The numbers are still too high for many area families.

Vicky Flores is a pastor at Grace United Methodist Church in southeast Fresno.

During food distributions, she says families always ask her about available housing due to rising rent and financial hardship.

"Nowadays people are not asking, 'Do you know of a house for rent.' What they're asking is, 'Do you know of a little studio? Do you know of a room? Do you know of a small apartment?'"

Flores has noticed more families at her church are in need of food assistance because more of their money goes to housing.

She mentioned one working family that had to uncomfortably downsize.

"Unfortunately, they had to move into a much smaller home where there's only two bedrooms for a family of five, so the parents decided to move into the garage," Flores said.

She worries about them because of the extreme temperature swings we see.

"The parents are going to have to put up with the winters in the garage and the summers we face here in the Valley," Flores said.

San Jose topped that rental price list in the US.

The median price to rent a single family home was $3,600 a month.

Median rent for an apartment was $2,867.