A rare piece of good news for Los Angeles' housing market: rental prices here are increasing far slower than the national average.
A recent study by Zillow found that the average rent increased by 2.4% last year in the L.A. metro area – a rate far lower than some other major cities. But the typical apartment in L.A. clocks in at a little under $3,000 a month, and while the rent is going up comparatively slowly…it’s still going up.
“Rents have been increasing. They continue to increase, except the pace of increases has slowed from the pandemic peak right in 2022,” Zillow's senior economist Orphe Divounguy told KNX News Chief Correspondent Charles Feldman. “However, in the last couple of months, we're starting to see some pressure again on rent growth, especially in the single family space.”
Zillow’s report found that the price of renting a single-family home in L.A. rose by 4.7% last year, compared to a 1.5% increase for apartments.
Divounguy said the sky-high rents along the West Coast are partly due to constraints on new housing construction.
“Builders tend to respond to demand for housing,” he said. “Unfortunately, in some markets, builders are unable to respond to that demand because of land use regulations, a lot of regulations in some areas that really prevent builders from actually kind of filling those gaps and responding to demand as much.”
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Zillow estimates that renters in L.A. have to make nearly $117,000 a year to be able to comfortably afford the typical apartment in the metro area.
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