Rents a Key Driver of Inflation: Housing increases account for nearly half the rise in the core consumer price index.

Perhaps nowhere is the trend more evident than in Los Angeles. Rents rose 7% last year — more than double the rate of increase of recent years — as the occupancy rate soared to a historical high of 97%, according to the Casden Forecast at USC\'s Lusk Center for Real Estate. The going monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Hollywood is $1,900. In West Los Angeles, the most expensive rental market in California outside San Francisco, the average two-bedroom goes for $2,460, according to the forecast. \"There is real pressure to rent now because people can\'t afford to buy,\" said Delores Conway, director of the Casden Forecast.