Analysis: Metro Atlanta’s priciest area for renting is now... Alpharetta?

Months before Alpharetta’s mega-mixed-use Avalon opened in 2014, project leaders released a few surprising, if not shocking, statistics related to the development’s apartment component: 1,600 people had joined a reserve list for just 250 initial rentals, which included select units that were renting for a Manhattan-like $5,000 per month.

That was for two bedrooms and 1,728 square feet—hardly the McMansions of rental flats.

Five years later, the most top-shelf Avalon rentals command north of $5,700 monthly, as Alpharetta has emerged as an outlier for not just the suburbs but the entire state when it comes to rent prices.

That’s according to apartment search company RENTCafé, which recently tallied data from 130 markets to determine the priciest zip codes for renting in each state, as the hot summer rental season begins to cool.

Analysts found that Alpharetta’s 30009 zip code—an area that includes Avalon and the North Fulton city’s growing downtown district—chalks up the highest average rents in Georgia at $2,272 monthly.

That tops the state’s second costliest rental zone, central Buckhead’s 30305. And it bests red-hot markets such as Midtown, Old Fourth Ward, and Inman Park—by hundreds of dollars per month, on average, in some cases.

The findings also speak to what Atlanta real estate executive Norman Radow, CEO and founder of RADCO, a multifamily housing development investment firm, termed a “suburban renaissance” happening in select OTP cities during an interview with Curbed Atlanta last year.

“Obviously, incredible live, work, play projects like Avalon keep people in the suburbs,” Radow said, “offering a taste of intown living while both feet are planted in the suburbs.”

Alpharetta’s is the only zip code in the top 10 that isn’t in Atlanta, per RENTCafé’s findings.

RENTCafé

Analysts looked at rents charged in buildings with 50 or more units, excluding single-family homes and smaller, boutique apartment complexes.

The majority of Atlanta’s most expensive rental zip codes are concentrated in the Buckhead area, from points around Chastain Park to Brookhaven and the Lenox Superblock.

Intown Elite

Across the country, RENTCafé’s top five most expensive zip codes for average rent were all in New York or Los Angeles, with Manhattan’s 10282 (near Tribeca) taking the cake at $6,211 per month—a 12.4 percent jump from last year.

Manhattan, unsurprisingly, took seven of the top 10 slots on the national level.