It appears as though the national slowdown in home sales has yet to trickle down to rents in housing-strapped cities.
A new report from ApartmentList reveals rents in Los Angeles increased slightly over the past year, Curbed reported. The city has consistently been considered one of the most unaffordable places to live in the country, given that wages are still lagging in comparison to rent.
The median price of a two-bedroom apartment in the city circled at $1,760 per month, up .1 percent since June and .6 percent year over year. Rents in Santa Monica and West Hollywood were more expensive at $2,190 and $2,680, respectively.
That’s lower than the cost of rent in other major cities. In New York, rent for a two-bedroom unit cost $2,560 in July. Meanwhile, rent in San Francisco reached $3,100.
It’s also not getting any easier to own a home. A report from ATTOM Data Solutions, released in March, showed that the average annual wage isn’t enough to afford a median-priced home in more than 70 percent of the counties in the country. The average earners in New York would have to spend more than 100 percent of their income to afford that, the report revealed. In L.A. and Miami-Dade, it was 68 and 40 percent, respectively. [Curbed] — Natalie Hoberman