Rents in Southern California may be running out of room to climb.
The growth in apartment rents has slowed noticeably this year, according to new figures out Wednesday, the latest sign that housing is becoming too expensive for many Angelenos.
This dynamic is why Los Angeles often scores worse on housing affordability measures than more expensive markets such as San Francisco. There, the average rent hit $2,141 in the second quarter, but typical household incomes are nearly one-third higher.
And it is starting to put a damper on how high Southland landlords can push the price of their apartments, even with vacancy rates at a rock-bottom 3%. It's an unusual situation, said Richard Green, director of the Lusk Center for Real Estate at USC.
"We're in a place we've never been before," Green said. "The very low vacancy rate says rents should go up. The affordability problem says they can't."