The East Contra Costa rental market did go soft in 2025, and by late summer 2026 that soft patch is over. The Zillow Observed Rent Index, which follows the same rental units over time and is published as open data, shows asking rents in August 2026 at or near all-time highs in Pittsburg, Antioch, Brentwood and Concord, up between 1.9 and 4.4 percent from a year earlier, and Oakley a little below its April peak. A year ago the same index showed Antioch and Brentwood flat and Oakley falling. Meanwhile the Bay Area core is running hot: San Francisco rents are up 25 percent in a year and Oakland 10 percent, while Contra Costa County as a whole is up 3.8 percent and the United States 2.5 percent. For a housing provider (landlord) in Pittsburg, Antioch, Brentwood, Oakley, Bay Point or Concord, the right description of 2026 is steady, not soft, and the moves that pay are the same ones that paid in 2025: price from leased comparables on day one, keep good residents through a renewal process that starts early, and treat the legal rent cap as a ceiling rather than a target. The vacancy figures the mid-2025 version of this page quoted had no public source at the city level; they are gone, replaced with rent data anyone can download and check.
What the rent data shows
The table uses the Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI), all home types, August 2026 release. ZORI tracks the same rental units as they are listed over time, weights the result to the local rental stock using Census data, and reports a smoothed typical asking rent; it is a measure of what homes are being offered for, not what every lease signed at. The files are published openly on Zillow Research and anyone can repeat the arithmetic.
| Area | August 2025 | August 2026 | One-year change | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pittsburg | $2,380 | $2,453 | +3.1% | All-time high; growth accelerated from +0.7% in spring 2026 |
| Antioch | $2,797 | $2,851 | +1.9% | All-time high; slowest growth of the five; near zero in December 2025 |
| Brentwood | $3,276 | $3,406 | +4.0% | All-time high; steady at about 4% all year |
| Oakley | $3,150 | $3,289 | +4.4% | Below its April 2026 peak of $3,353; negative year-over-year in late summer 2025 |
| Concord | $2,501 | $2,572 | +2.8% | All-time high; softest in early 2026, firmer since spring |
| Contra Costa County | $2,815 | $2,922 | +3.8% | |
| San Francisco metro | $3,075 | $3,409 | +10.8% | |
| Oakland (city) | $2,484 | $2,735 | +10.1% | |
| San Francisco (city) | $3,739 | $4,682 | +25.2% | |
| United States | $1,901 | $1,948 | +2.5% |
Bay Point is an unincorporated community and does not have its own city index; the county figure and the Pittsburg figure are the closest references.
Two things stand out. First, East Contra Costa is growing at roughly the national pace, a little above it, and nowhere near the core Bay Area. Second, the gap between Antioch and Brentwood has widened: Antioch's typical asking rent is up $54 in a year, Brentwood's $130.
The 2025 soft patch, month by month
The mid-2025 version of this page described a softening market. The index agrees that it was softening then. Year-over-year growth in Antioch slid from about 4 percent in late 2024 to 0.7 percent by June 2025 and zero by December. Brentwood went from double-digit growth in fall 2024 to flat in May and June 2025. Oakley turned negative in August and September 2025, the only city to do so. Pittsburg and Concord slowed but never went flat.
The turn came in the first half of 2026. By August 2026 every city is growing again, four of the five are at all-time highs, and Oakley is within 2 percent of its peak. The soft patch lasted roughly a year, which is in line with the earlier observation that local cycles tend to be short. What the mid-2025 version got wrong was the vacancy rate, which it stated as 5.2 to 5.3 percent for the East Bay without a source. We could not find a public, city-level vacancy series for East Contra Costa, and we have removed the figure rather than keep an unsupported one.
What "steady, not soft" changes for an owner
Renewal versus vacancy. The math has not reversed, because a vacancy is still the most expensive event in a tenancy. At $2,750 a month every vacant week costs about $633, and a turnover adds make-ready and leasing costs on top. In a market growing 2 to 4 percent a year, the difference between a renewal at market and a renewal at the legal cap is rarely worth a vacancy. Keeping a resident with a good payment record at a market-based increase beats re-listing at a stretch number.
Pricing at lease-up. Overpricing a new listing still creates compounding losses. Each week a home sits at an above-market price costs a week of rent and pushes the listing into a slower window. Pricing from comparable homes that actually leased, on day one, remains the fastest path to a signed lease; our Zillow Rent Zestimate guide explains why a portal estimate is a starting point and not the number.
Condition and presentation. Residents still have choices. A clean, responsive, well-maintained home leases faster and renews more often than a comparable home with deferred repairs, in any market. Deferred maintenance that was tolerated in 2022 remains a vacancy risk in 2026.
The cap is a ceiling, not a target. For a home covered by AB 1482 in the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward CPI area, which includes Contra Costa County, the maximum increase from August 1, 2026 through July 31, 2027 is 8.8 percent (5 percent plus the 3.8 percent regional CPI), as published by the San Francisco Rent Board. In Antioch, the Rent Stabilization Ordinance caps increases on covered units at the lower of 3 percent or 60 percent of CPI, which the city publishes as 2.04 percent for increases effective September 14 through November 10, 2026. In Concord, the Residential Tenant Protection Program allows 5 percent as of August 1, 2025. Set those next to the actual growth in the table, 1.9 to 4.4 percent, and the point is plain: an owner who prices a renewal at the cap in Pittsburg or Brentwood is asking roughly double what the market moved, and in Antioch the cap and the market are the same number. Our guide to who regulates property managers in California covers both local programs.
Recommendations by city
Pittsburg and Bay Point. Growth accelerated through the summer of 2026, from under 1 percent year-over-year in the spring to 3.1 percent in August, and the index sits at a high. Price from leased comparables on day one rather than from 2024 data, and do not add a premium for the Bay Area headlines. If a listing stalls past two weeks, a one-time move-in concession, not a permanent reduction, is the first lever. Bay Point has no city index; use the Pittsburg and county figures and the comparable listings in the same corridor.
Antioch. The slowest grower of the five, and the city with a local cap that currently sits at 2.04 percent, almost exactly the market's year-over-year change. Renewals here should be priced from comparables and checked against the Antioch cap and its 12-month spacing rule before the notice goes out; the Antioch area page covers the city's rules. A well-maintained home with a responsive owner still outperforms a comparable home with deferred maintenance at the same rent.
Brentwood and Oakley. The highest rents in the corridor and the strongest year-over-year growth, with one caution: Oakley's index has come off its April peak by about 2 percent, so a home listed in Oakley this fall should be priced from this quarter's comparables, not the spring's. Hold asking prices close to market and negotiate on terms, such as lease length or start date, before touching base rent.
Concord. Up 2.8 percent in a year and at a high after a soft first quarter. Concord has a 5 percent local cap on covered multifamily units and a rent registry; single-family homes and condominiums are covered by the city's just-cause rules. Review active comparables monthly and register on time; the Concord area page has the details.
Retention is still the first priority
In any market, the most expensive transaction is losing a resident you could have kept. The habits that work:
- Start the renewal early. Our renewal review begins a little over 100 days before each lease expiration: payment history, current market rent from a comparable-rent analysis, and property condition are reviewed, AB 1482 coverage and any local cap are verified before an increase is set, and the renewal offer goes to the owner for approval before it goes to the resident. The published version of that step is on our proven process page. An owner managing alone can run the same sequence at 90 days.
- Market-based increases, not cap-based ones. A resident who sees an increase that matches what comparable homes rent for tends to stay; a resident who sees the legal maximum tends to look.
- Maintenance response time. Residents who feel well served do not look elsewhere. Residents waiting weeks for a repair start comparing listings.
What not to do
- Reactive repricing. Dropping rent every two weeks to match the lowest listing drives revenue down without necessarily closing a lease faster. Set a well-researched price on day one; if it has not leased at 21 days, make one deliberate move.
- Over-improving for current rents. Significant renovation spending to capture top-of-market rent typically takes two to three years to recoup at 2 to 4 percent growth. Focus on functional, clean and well-maintained.
- Pricing from the wrong market. A San Francisco or Oakland headline about double-digit rent growth is not information about Antioch. The county is up 3.8 percent; the five cities are up 1.9 to 4.4 percent.
- Treating the cap as the increase. The cap is the legal maximum, and the comparables are the market; in Pittsburg and Brentwood the two differ by a factor of two.
How Croskey reads the market
Our published targets are a vacant home leased within 21 days and 14 days or less on the market. The asking rent comes from a comparable-rent market analysis built from public listing data and the achieved rents and days on market in our own portfolio, which is real leasing history rather than an index; the index is a check on direction, not the source of the number. Software tracks each listing after launch, views against inquiries, no-shows, approvals that do not sign, and at 21 days on the market the owner hears from us with a specific pricing or marketing move, before they have to ask. The pricing decision is made by a licensed person. For context on what the index is and is not, the pricing method we use is described in full in our AB 325 guide, including why checking public listings and your own history sits well inside the 2026 pricing-software law.
When the market moves again
Local cycles in this corridor have been short. The 2025 soft patch ran about a year by the index; the core Bay Area's 2026 surge may or may not reach the Highway 4 corridor, and we are not going to predict it. What the data supports is narrower: owners who kept good residents through 2025 at market-based renewals, maintained their homes, and did not loosen screening under vacancy pressure entered 2026 with occupied homes at rents that have since risen. The index is updated monthly; we will revise this page when the picture changes, and the date at the top of the page is the test of whether it has been.
Our read, from the operator's chair
The question we hear most often this year is whether to raise a renewal to the cap "while the market is hot," and what follows are patterns from our renewal files, not one owner's story. The market that is hot is forty miles west. In this corridor the comparables say 2 to 4 percent, and the renewals that hold are the ones priced there. The ones priced at 8.8 percent produce a notice to vacate often enough that the arithmetic does not survive the first vacant week.
The second pattern is the owner who read "softening" in 2025 and held an asking rent below the comparables into 2026 out of caution. The index is a lagging, smoothed average; by the time it showed the turn, the leased comparables in the same corridor had already moved. That is the reason we price from what leased last month and use the index only to confirm the direction.
The third pattern is Antioch, where the local cap and the market's growth are the same number. Owners there sometimes experience the cap as a constraint; in practice it has matched what the market would have borne anyway, and the renewal conversation is simpler than it looks.
Where to go from here
The quickest way to put your own home on this table is the instant rent range on our start-management page, which returns a market range for your address without contact details, followed by the Owner Rent Analysis our licensed team sends within one business day. If a sale is on the table instead, start with our guide to selling a rental property with tenants in California, and a consultation is the simple way to ask how we would price or renew your home in Pittsburg, Antioch, Brentwood, Oakley, Bay Point or Concord.
This guide is general information for California rental owners, not legal or financial advice. Rent figures are from the Zillow Observed Rent Index (all home types, smoothed), August 2026 release, downloaded from Zillow Research in October 2026; they describe typical asking rents and will be revised in later releases. Rent-cap figures are from the San Francisco Rent Board (AB 1482, August 1, 2026 to July 31, 2027), the City of Antioch Rent Program and the City of Concord Rent Program as of October 2026. Croskey Real Estate is an Equal Housing Opportunity provider. DRE #01990430.
Frequently asked questions
Is the East Bay rental market softening in 2026?
Not in East Contra Costa. The Zillow Observed Rent Index for August 2026 shows typical asking rents up 3.1 percent in Pittsburg, 1.9 percent in Antioch, 4.0 percent in Brentwood, 4.4 percent in Oakley and 2.8 percent in Concord over a year, with four of the five cities at all-time highs. The soft patch was 2025: Antioch and Brentwood went flat and Oakley turned negative that year. The core Bay Area is a different market, with San Francisco up 25 percent and Oakland up 10 percent.
Should I lower my rent to fill a vacancy faster?
Price from comparable homes that actually leased on day one rather than starting high and reducing. If a well-priced listing has not leased at 21 days, make one deliberate move, a price adjustment or a one-time move-in concession, instead of chasing the lowest listing every two weeks. At $2,750 a month every vacant week costs about $633, so the cost of overpricing is paid in weeks, not dollars off the rent.
How much can I raise rent in Pittsburg, Antioch or Concord in 2026?
For a home covered by AB 1482 in the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward CPI area, which includes Contra Costa County, the maximum increase from August 1, 2026 through July 31, 2027 is 8.8 percent. Antioch's local ordinance caps increases on covered units at the lower of 3 percent or 60 percent of CPI, published by the city as 2.04 percent for increases effective September 14 through November 10, 2026, with 12 months between increases. Concord allows 5 percent on covered multifamily units. Those are ceilings; actual market growth in these cities is 2 to 4 percent, and a renewal priced above the comparables tends to produce a vacancy.
How do I find the current market rent for my home?
Use three sources together: an index such as the Zillow Observed Rent Index for direction, active listings on the portals for what is competing right now (a comparable listed more than three weeks is telling you its price is high), and homes that actually leased in the last 90 days for the number itself. Croskey's instant rent range on the start-management page gives a market range for an address without contact details, and the Owner Rent Analysis that follows within one business day prices from leased comparables and our own portfolio history.
Is it a renter's market or a landlord's market in East Contra Costa right now?
Neither extreme. Rents are growing at about the national pace, 2 to 4 percent a year, after a flat 2025, and the homes that lease fastest are priced from leased comparables and well maintained. Residents still have choices, so condition, responsiveness and a market-based renewal decide whether a good resident stays.
Is this a good time to sell a rental property?
That depends on your basis, financing, tax position and goals rather than on the rental index alone; a steady rental market and a strong sales market can coexist. Our guide to selling a rental property with tenants in California covers the sale-side process, and the sell-or-hold decision belongs with a licensed broker and your CPA.
Sources
- Zillow Research, Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI), city-level file, all home types, smoothed, August 2026 release, downloaded October 2026
- Zillow Research, ZORI county-level and metro-level files, August 2026 release, downloaded October 2026
- Zillow Research, methodology: Zillow Observed Rent Index, retrieved October 2026
- San Francisco Rent Board, California Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (AB 1482) allowable increase, August 1, 2026 to July 31, 2027, retrieved October 2026
- City of Antioch, Rent Program (rent increase limit table), retrieved October 2026
- City of Concord, Rent Program (allowable annual rent increase), retrieved October 2026
- Croskey Real Estate, proven process (lease renewal step; leasing targets), retrieved October 2026
- Croskey Real Estate, start management services (instant rent range), retrieved October 2026
