Study: Sandy Springs rents have cratered in the past year. WTF?

Like everywhere else in post-recession metro Atlanta, Sandy Springs has seen a steady current of new apartment stock in recent years, with several large-scale rental additions in the pipeline, too.

But like nowhere else, the OTP city’s rents have fallen off a cliff in the past year, relatively speaking, according to a new study by online rental platform Zumper.

Rents for Sandy Springs two-bedrooms have cratered in the last year by 15 percent to a median of $1,400, the research found. One-bedroom rentals are 5 percent cheaper, meanwhile, than this time a year ago.

Compare that to suburban brethren Roswell, where rents for one-bedrooms have soared by 15 percent in the same timespan. Or next-door Dunwoody, where rents for two-bedrooms swelled by 15 percent, too.

Of 11 cities Zumper looked at—from Atlanta to Gainesville, and many popular communities across the northern arc—all saw one-bedroom rents go up, with the exception of Sandy Springs.

What’s up with that?

The culprit certainly isn’t a sour local job market. So overbuilding? Traffic? Threats of Disneyfication?

No surprise that Atlanta is the region’s priciest city for renting (median of $1,350 for a one-bedroom), considering it generally costs a thousand bucks more per month to live intown versus the ‘burbs. Johns Creek and Alpharetta, respectively, are next on the most expensive list, per Zumper.

On the flipside, the metro’s cheapest renting destinations are Gainesville ($690 monthly, well below the state median), followed by Norcross and Marietta.

• Atlanta Metro Report: March 2017 [Zumper]
• Study: Suburban Atlanta living is way cheaper than city life [Curbed Atlanta]