Delores Conway, Director, USC Casden Real Estate Economics Forecast, is quoted April 8, 2009 in the Los Angeles Daily News:
Rents falling in the Valley
Los Angeles Daily News
By Gregory J. Wilcox
...The recession is driving an exodus of apartment dwellers, forcing landlords to make concessions and driving down rents in the San Fernando Valley, said a USC study released Wednesday. In last year's fourth quarter, the average rent for a Valley apartment fell nearly 4 percent and the occupancy rate fell 4.4 percent, said the Casden Multifamily Market Report from the university's Lusk Center.
Across Los Angeles County last year, 41,000 people moved out of apartments - as opposed to the 29,000 who moved in over the past five years, the report said.
The number of apartment renters "dropped very suddenly... really dramatically in the last half of last year," Delores Conway, director of the Casden Forecast. That trend is going to continue this year, too, she said. It's happening because people are losing jobs and moving in with friends and family or taking advantage of the most affordable housing prices in six or seven years and becoming owners rather than renters, the report said...
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April 8, 2009