More Apartments on the Market and Higher Vacancy Rates Contribute to Lower Rents
Data from Realtor.com and other sites seem to verify the downward trend in Los Angeles apartment rents continues as reported by The Real Deal.com. In March, median rents in the Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Anaheim metropolitan areas decreased by 0.8 percent year-over-year. Additionally, the month-to-month comparison showed that Los Angeles area rents dropped by about 0.9 percent from February to March.
In contrast, rents in the Inland Empire cities of Riverside-San Bernardino fell by 5.3 percent. Other research organizations, including Apartment List, reported similar trends in Los Angeles rentals.
Rob Warnock, a senior research associate for Apartment List, explained that the increased availability of apartments has resulted in lower demand and rent prices. During the pandemic, vacancy rates were under 4.4 percent in Los Angeles. However, in the first quarter of 2023, vacancy rates returned to pre-pandemic levels of 4.5 percent to 5.8 percent.
Zumper, a rental website that distributes market research, ranked Santa Monica as the most expensive city in the Los Angeles area with one-bedroom apartments priced at $3,100 per month. Beverly Hills followed, with one-bedroom units priced at $2,930 per month. The third most expensive city was West Hollywood, where the median rent for a one-bedroom was $2,700 per month.
On the other hand, the least expensive city in the Los Angeles region was Twentynine Palms, a desert city where the median rent was $940 per month. San Bernardino followed with monthly rents of $1,510, and Long Beach was the third least expensive with median rents of $1,800, according to Zumper.
