LA rent growth to slow in 2018, report says

Rents in Los Angeles County are predicted to rise to about 2.9 percent in 2018, to around $1,840 per month — a rate lower than what the county experienced last year, a new report says.

The 2.9 percent is less than the 3.2 percent rise seen in 2017 and less than half the 6 percent jump seen in 2015, according to a report by CoStar cited by Curbed.

That rate of growth will continue to drop in the coming years, thanks in part to the large number of units coming online. CoStar predicts that rents will rise by only 2.2 percent in 2019.

That means rents in some parts of the city will stagnate or drop in the near future, but it may not trickle down enough to provide relief for low-income Angelenos. Many of the units coming online are being developed in Downtown Los Angeles, where rents are high but rent growth was slower in 2017 than in many other LA neighborhoods.

DTLA had an 11 percent vacancy rate in mid-2017, and rent growth was lower there than in all but one of the 36 submarkets CoStar tracks. If developers there drop rents or offer high concessions, it could have a domino effect on the rest of the market. [Curbed] – Dennis Lynch