Prices are still higher than they were a year ago – but not by much
By Elijah Chiland
By and large, 2018 has been a year of stability for Los Angeles renters, after several years of steadily increasing prices.
According to a new report from Apartment List, rental prices in the city didn’t budge during the month of October. The median price for a one-bedroom apartment during the month was $1,370; for a two-bedroom it was $1,760. Both figures are unchanged from a month ago.
Rental prices are still higher than they were a year ago, but not by much. The monthly cost for a two-bedroom is up 1.3 percent since October 2017, which is equal to the average increase across all of California.
Apartment List uses Census data as a starting point when calculating current rental prices, meaning that the report gives a good idea of what renters within Los Angeles city limits are paying right now.
To get a sense of what the market looks like for those searching for a new place across all of LA County, we like to check in with CoStar.
According to the real estate analyst, which bases its calculations on current listings, the average rental price for a one-bedroom is $1,694. For a two-bedroom, it’s $2,159. Those figures are almost unchanged since last month, though prices are up roughly 2.7 percent since a year ago for both one- and two-bedroom apartments.
That doesn’t mean that LA’s rental market is cheap. The price of a two-bedroom in Los Angeles is nearly 50 percent higher than the national average, according to Apartment List. And wages in LA aren’t high enough to compensate for that difference.
According to a recent report from USC’s Lusk Center for Real Estate, renters who earn LA County’s median income would have to set aside nearly half of their earnings toward rent to afford a median-priced apartment.
The report also suggests that, in spite of recent stagnation in the rental market, prices will continue to rise over the next two years, climbing about 4 percent by 2020.
The original article can be found here.