The price of rent barely moved in the last year
One month into 2019, Los Angeles rental prices are looking much the same as they were at the close of 2018, according to a new report from Apartment List.
The analysis finds that the city’s median rent price for a one-bedroom apartment was $1,360 during January. A typical two-bedroom cost $1,750. Both prices were unchanged from a month earlier.
Over the last year, prices rose marginally—by about 1.4 percent. That rate of growth actually exceeds averages for the state (0.3 percent) and the nation (1 percent), but falls well under the 3 percent annual price bump allowed under Los Angeles’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance.
The slow rate of growth is good news for renters, but those looking for a new apartment might have trouble finding prices similar to those in the Apartment List study. The rental listing site calculates rent prices using U.S. Census data, giving a good sense of what tenants in LA are paying right now.
Real estate tracker CoStar checks thousands of apartment prices daily, using that information to calculate a market rate for Los Angeles County rentals. That gives a good sense of what prices apartment hunters might find browsing through online listings.
According to CoStar, one-bedroom apartments now rent for $1,707 on average, while two-bedroom apartments cost $2,181. In the last year, market-rate prices for one-bedrooms have risen 2.2 percent, while two-bedroom prices have jumped 2.3 percent.
Both rental prices and home values have leveled off over the last year, though Angelenos still dedicate a huge amount of money toward housing costs. According to a recent report from Zillow, residents of the LA metropolitan area spent more than $40 billion on rent in 2018.
Meanwhile, nearly half of LA County residents spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing, making it more difficult to afford other necessities like food and healthcare.
- Who’s moving out—and into—Los Angeles? [Curbed LA]
- Report: In LA, high housing prices make it hard to afford basic needs [Curbed LA]
- LA residents spent $40 billion on rent in 2018, says report [Curbed LA]
Source: Curbed LA – All