Housing: Local agencies and real estate experts say costs seem to be stable and even dipping despite a projected increase countywide. By Josh Grossberg and Nick Green A recent study may show that apartment rents in Los Angeles County are rising significantly in the next two years, but not in the South Bay, local real estate business people say. In fact, some South Bay rents are going down. Buoyed by a strengthening economy, continued immigration and shortage of new units, rents will go up by 6 percent to 8 percent a year, according to the Casden Real Estate Economics Forecast, which was released by the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate last week. "Demand for units has continued to be strong," said Raphael Bostic, director of the forecast. "When you have a big increase in demand and no corresponding increase in supply, it puts upward pressure on prices." In 2003, monthly rents averaged $1,300 in Los Angeles County. In 2005, the county's average rent will climb to $1,420 a month, according to the report. "The rents moving the fastest are for large apartments," Bostic said. "The three-bedroom apartment has appreciated particularly strongly. Those are the ones that show up least often. Builders tend to shy away from that product." But rents in the South Bay are rising more slowly, Bostic said. "That part of the market was closely tied to the tech industry," he said. "It hasn't really recovered by the tech bust that happened in 2000." Local real estate agents agree that rents are inching along. "In Carson, prices are rising, but not as high as that report would indicate," said John Churchill, the association executive of the South Bay Association of Realtors. "(A real estate agent) who's active in Hermosa, Redondo and Torrance said there doesn't seem to be any movement." In fact, the owners of the Web site South Bay Rentals said that rents have actually been dropping. The site focuses exclusively on the South Bay and deals with about 2,000 units a week, according to owner Andrew Plog. "This is indisputably the worst year," he said. "My experience is rents are going down. Landlords call and say they're not getting calls, what's going on?" Plog and his partner, Mary Ann Amato, deal with vacant apartments, so they don't know what's happening with occupied units. "When your rent goes up $25, you're not going to move," Amato said. "But when the economy was good, people were moving." Moving into a $1,350 two-bedroom apartment Wednesday in the Bavarian Village Apartments on Anza Avenue in Torrance, Nancy Su said the kind of annual increases predicted in the study would make it difficult for her and her husband to afford such rents. "From our perspective we really hope prices remain stable, otherwise it's hard," she said. "We wanted to find a place we could live in longer." The manager of the 42-unit complex, Lillian Bownass, said she doubted rental increases of the scale the study forecast was likely. The complex recently increased rents $30 to $50 a month for two-bedroom apartments for the first time in 18 months to two years. Prices for one-bedroom apartments did not go up at all, Bownass said. Gerri Rude, executive business manager of the 248-unit Milano Luxury rentals just down the street, also doubted the high end of the market would see increases in excess of 6 percent. New high-end apartments coming on the market in such nearby communities as Long Beach are making the competition tougher for 30-year-old complexes like the Milano, even if its amenities are among the best in Torrance, Rude said. "Since the competition is a little tougher it doesn't seem plausible we're going to get an 8 percent increase," she said. The complex raised its rents Jan. 1 and saw increases of between $10 and $45 a month, she said. Tammy Bard's $1,600 a month rent for a three-bedroom Torrance apartment has not gone up for the three years she's lived there. "I think it's under market," she said. "But I want to stay in Torrance, so I'll pay whatever it costs me, whether it means to get a roommate or a two bedroom."
April 4, 2004