Tag: Rent

BEVERLY HILLS—Rent prices in Beverly Hills are falling noticeably as the city has been building a significant amount of new housing, and a chunk of that new inventory is sitting vacant. Within the past 12 months alone, Beverly Hills and Century City added approximately 400 new premium rental units, with close to 10 percent of them unoccupied.

Landlords are having to compete harder for a limited pool of qualified renters. Rent prices in cities like Palmdale, Lancaster, and San Bernardino are rising sharply. One-bedroom apartments in Palmdale have risen 12 percent year over year, with San Bernardino seeing a 5 percent increase, the New York Post reported.

Many residents have been priced out of these cities and are moving to more affordable neighborhoods. The shift is not only affecting hillside communities, but coastal ones as well.

Malibu saw a 3.6 percent decline, Huntington Beach fell 5.6 percent, and Redondo Beach dropped 6.9 percent year over year.

Data points to a genuine oversupply taking shape. Hundreds of new apartments and condominiums are under construction in Beverly Hills and are expected to hit the market within the next couple of years.

More units mean more competition among landlords for the same pool of renters, which will likely continue driving rent prices down.

By Milan Manesh

SANTA MONICA—The City of Santa Monica announced in a press release on Tuesday, November 14, that the City Council during its meeting on October 24, voted to support the Justice for Renters Act, a state ballot initiative set for the November 2024 ballot.

The initiative would repeal the 1995 Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which places limits on municipal rent control ordinances. Under Santa Monica’s current rent control law it limits rent increases and evictions for tenants of approximately 27,000 apartments in the city built before the law went into effect in 1979.

Under Costa-Hawkins, landlords of those rent-controlled apartments are allowed to raise rents to market rate once a tenant moves out.

“The Costa Hawkins act has a very pernicious effect on our ability to control people’s financial ability to continue to live in Santa Monica,” said Mayor Gleam Davis. “The Justice for Renters Act will help local governments address some of the root causes of homelessness — skyrocketing rents and unaffordable housing.”

Rent Control Board records display that initial median rents for new tenants have rose each year since Costa-Hawkins went into effect. With the federal standard for affordability, a household would have required an income of at least $115,429 to afford a studio apartment in Santa Monica at the median rental rate set in 2022 for new tenancies.

The Santa Monica Rent Control was adopted by the voters in April 1979 in response to a shortage of housing units, low vacancy rates, and rapidly rising rents.

The law was aimed to alleviate the housing shortage and to ensure that owners received no more than a fair return.

The Rent Control Board and the Rent Control Agency focus on the following:

-Controlling the rent that may continue to be charged for a residential rental unit and providing remedies if excess rent is collected
-Determining the base amenities/services included in the rent and providing remedies for any reduction
-Limiting the grounds for eviction
-Limiting removal of units from the rental market
-Ensuring rental-property owners a fair return

For additional details on Santa Monica’s rent control program visit here.

By Trevor