Greater Palm Springs remains a beautiful place to live and a tough place to rent, especially if you need space for a family. Fresh Zillow Market Trends figures for 3-bedroom single-family homes and 2-bedroom apartments/condos show average prices that strain many household budgets and keep much of the service-sector workforce on the edge.
This report uses the latest Zillow Market Trends rental data for the valley, extracted for this article. It focuses only on 3-bedroom houses and 2-bedroom apartments/condos. Zillow’s figures reflect observed market rents from a large volume of listings and platform activity. They capture actual market activity at scale, unlike government measures that rely on relatively small survey samples to infer trends. In comparison, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI rent sample is about 40,000 units nationwide, surveyed every six months; the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey samples approximately 3.5 million addresses annually across all topics.
What renters are paying in the valley’s cities
Seven of the region’s nine cities appear in the data (Indian Wells and Coachella are excluded from this analysis due to a low volume of available rental units). The figures below are city averages for Nov. 1, 2025, with year-over-year change from Nov. 1, 2024. Availability counts come from Zillow’s active inventory in this cut; average days on market (DOM) data is only available for houses.
3-Bedroom Single-Family Houses
Valley average (unweighted): $4,888. City-level movements were mixed; La Quinta led gains, while Palm Springs posted a notable pullback. Average DOM for houses: 159 days.
2-Bedroom Apartments/Condos
Valley average (unweighted): $2,197. Year over year, apartment/condo pricing trends are more volatile: Palm Springs, Indio, and Desert Hot Springs rose; La Quinta and Palm Desert fell sharply.
Totals in this data: 1,326 houses and 886 apartments/condos available.
Supply Shift: New Apartments Hit the Market in La Quinta and Palm Desert
The sharp year-over-year price declines for 2-bedroom apartments in La Quinta and Palm Desert line up with a tangible shift on the ground: more doors have opened. Over the past 12 months, Palm Desert brought several hundred new apartments online, including income-restricted options, while La Quinta added new, smaller-scale buildings downtown. Fresh supply has introduced more competition at key price points, typically nudging asking rents lower or keeping new listings in check.
In Palm Desert, two projects stand out. Agate at Palm Desert, an income-restricted community on Gerald Ford Drive, opened in late 2024 and totals about 190 units, a scale large enough to move the needle in nearby listings. Agate later earned a 2025 CoStar Impact Award, underscoring its role in meeting workforce demand. A second project, The Crossings at Palm Desert near Dick Kelly and Gateway Drives, is a 176-unit affordable community serving households roughly 30%–60% of the area median income; it began leasing in fall 2025.
La Quinta’s quiet multifamily turn is now showing up in the rent data. After years with very little apartment construction, the city has moved several rental projects from concept to ribbon-cutting, putting downward pressure on advertised apartment and condo asking rents. Jefferson Street Apartments, 40 units, is under construction, and the city has also approved Jefferson Square, enabling multifamily on a portion of an existing center at Jefferson and Fred Waring (the entitlement allows up to 88 apartments; news coverage at the time detailed 71 apartments and 18 townhomes). Together with the earlier approval of the 252-unit La Quinta Village Apartments at Washington Street and Avenue 50, these entitlements mark a decisive policy shift toward adding conventional apartments within city limits.
The pipeline is deepest now in Rancho Mirage, where the city has advanced multiple income-restricted and market-rate projects through approvals on the way to construction. At the recent Rancho Mirage State of the City luncheon, Mayor Pro Tem Lynn Mallotto devoted her remarks to the city’s affordable and workforce housing strategy, what she called “investing in the people who make Rancho Mirage thrive every day.” Multiple projects are advancing concurrently, including Rancho Mirage Affordable Apartments near Rancho Mirage High School and The Crossings on Peterson Road, a veteran-priority community developed by The Blue Company. Recent council actions approving major affordable communities include a 150-unit development by National Community Renaissance and USA Properties Fund near the Home Depot/Regal center. In all, the pipeline totals nearly 900 game-changing new homes for families, seniors and veterans.
How local prices stack up against the Inland Empire, Southern California, and the U.S.
As a broad yardstick, Zillow reports the national average monthly rent for a 2-bedroom apartment/condo at $1,800 and for a 3-bedroom single-family home at $2,150. Against those benchmarks, the valley’s unweighted averages are 22% higher for 2-bedroom houses (+$397) and a striking 127% higher for 3-bedroom houses (+$2,738).
Looking around the region:
- Inland Empire (Riverside–San Bernardino–Ontario metro): Zillow’s overall Observed Rent Index (all bedrooms, all types) sits around $2,536 (Sept. 30, 2025). That’s a helpful “regional pulse,” though it’s not segmented by bedroom. The valley’s 2-bedroom average ($2,197) is roughly 13% below that metro-wide overall figure, consistent with the idea that family-sized rentals in resort submarkets skew high. At the same time, the broader metro includes more mid-market stock.
- Greater Southern California proxy (Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim metro): Overall rents average $2,954 (Sept. 30, 2025). Even against that all-in SoCal figure, the valley’s 3-bedroom house average ($4,888) reads high at approximately 66% above the metro’s overall rent level.
- Statewide California bedroom benchmarks: Zillow lists California’s 2-bedroom average at $2,712 and 3-bedroom at $3,600. The valley’s 2-bedroom average ($2,197) is almost 19% lower than the statewide 2-bedroom mark, reflecting relatively more attainable apartment pricing outside the coast. In comparison, the 3-bedroom house average ($4,888) is almost 36% higher than the statewide 3-bedroom figure, highlighting the premium on family-sized homes in resort communities.
Affordability crisis for service workers
The Greater Palm Springs economy depends heavily on hospitality, retail, food service, and property maintenance, sectors where wages rarely keep pace with the “housing wage” needed for affordability. The California minimum wage is $16.50/hour (higher for some industries). Still, most local service jobs pay well below the $33.63/hour required to afford a modest 2-bedroom at fair-market rent without exceeding the 30% of income affordability standard.
For context, a full-time worker earning $18/hour brings in about $3,120 per month, making $936 the recommended upper limit for housing costs. That’s less than half the region’s typical 2-bedroom rent and not even close to a 3-bedroom. A family with two full-time workers at this wage, grossing $6,240 per month, should ideally spend no more than $1,872 on rent, still well below what the local market demands, especially for families with two or more children who need a 3-bedroom apartment or condo.
The result is a severe cost burden: half of all U.S. renters now spend more than 30% of their income on housing, with over a quarter spending more than half (Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, 2024). In the Coachella Valley, this means families double up, commute long distances, or leave the region entirely in search of affordability.
