Angelenos have guardian angels on their side, with Los Angeles city rents slipping in the last quarter \u2014 but they\u2019ll still need to say a prayer to afford them.<\/p>\n
A new report from Realtor.com<\/a> shows the median asking rent for homes listed on the company\u2019s portal lowered to $2,682 in the first quarter of 2026 \u2014 a 3.5%, or $96, annual decline. While that\u2019s welcome news for city residents looking to save a few bucks, it still requires a substantial income to afford living there.<\/p>\n The report adds that, in order to afford the typical LA residence, renters need an annual income of $107,280. That\u2019s 20% higher than LA\u2019s estimated median household income of $88,730.<\/p>\n Rents are down across the city of Los Angeles since their peak in 2022. HunYoung \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n Rent control reform for controlled buildings like this one at 5800 Harold Way will cap annual increases. Los Angeles Times via Getty Images<\/p>\n Rents in prime pockets, such as Santa Monica, are down. Tierney \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n Still, it costs quite the income to be able to afford living in the city of Los Angeles. SeanPavonePhoto \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n Of course, it\u2019s no wonder Californians overall have left<\/a> the Golden State in droves \u2014 especially for more affordable states, such as Texas. New research<\/a> from the University of California\u2019s California Policy Lab shows those who have moved away from California are poorer residents who find it hard to keep quality of life in an increasingly unaffordable state. And by leaving, they found themselves in better circumstances.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean the city of Los Angeles hasn\u2019t acted. In December, the city enacted its most significant rent control reform in 40 years, which will take effect in July. That measure, the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, will cap annual rent increase on some 650,000 stabilized dwellings at no more than 4%. That\u2019s down from the previous cap of 8%, and will cover about 74% of all LA rental homes.<\/p>\n Though that\u2019s beneficial for Angelenos in stabilized units, a reduction in moving can create ripple effects through the city, the report adds. If tenants stay in place longer, that shrinks the supply of units for new renters, creating a scarcity. Not only could that send prices up, but it could also fuel bidding wars over a small sum of units.<\/p>\n Still, some of LA\u2019s most prime pockets saw rent reductions. Beverly Hills went down by 9.3%, Malibu by 3.6% and Santa Monica by 2.6%. Transit-connected, and more walkable, hubs saw gains or held firm. Those include Long Beach, which saw a 2.4% gain, and Culver City, which stayed largely steady at 0.2%.<\/p>\n Overall, Los Angeles County also saw its median asking rent decline in the first quarter \u2014 to $2,520, down 3.7%, or $97, year-over-year. That\u2019s the lowest price recorded since early 2022.<\/p>\n The reason: a surge in new multi-family construction continues to calm prices from rising.<\/p>\n Across Los Angeles County, the pool of renters is largely local. More than 60% of online traffic to county rental listings came from within the county itself \u2014 with an additional 18.9% coming from other pockets of the Golden State. Out-of-state house hunters made up 16.6% of traffic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Angelenos have guardian angels on their side, with Los Angeles city rents slipping in the last quarter \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[24804,48,52,51,47,50,49,388,19160,11853],"class_list":["post-291492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-apartments","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-real-estate","tag-rentals","tag-residential-real-estate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}