Renting an apartment in parts of Southern California is about to get more expensive.
A report published Tuesday by the University of Southern California’s Lusk Center for Real Estate predicts a significant rise in rents across the Southland region, pointing to low vacancies and high demand.
The report predicted that by September 2023, the average monthly rent price in L.A. County will jump $252. Prices in the Inland Empire saw the lowest inflation at $241.
But the increase predicted for neighboring counties is even more steep, researchers said. Orange County residents will spend $410 more. Ventura County prices are expected to climb $310. In San Diego County, the study forecasted people will spend an additional $348 a month.
“COVID-19 caused a large-scale move from central cities to the suburbs that resulted in a sharp rise in apartment vacancies in Downtown L.A., Koreatown, and Beverly Hills and historically low vacancies in Rancho Cucamonga, North City San Diego, and Oxnard,” Lusk Center Director Richard Green, co-author of the report, said in a statement.
“While vacancies are coming back down in urban areas, the outskirts remain low in supply and will see rents go up at a much higher rate than the cities,” Green continued.
Rental markets with vacancy rates below 5% can expect to see rent hikes, the report anticipated. Downtown L.A., Koreatown, and Beverly Hills are all above 5%, but the vacancy rate in L.A. County generally sits at 3.9%. Orange County has 2.1% available vacancies, just below the Inland Empire’s at 2.5%.
Real estate researchers foresee those figures rising by the end of 2023, but never peaking above 5%.
The original article can be found here.