Los Angeles Rental Market

nosuchreality

Well-known member
How?s the LA rental market doing?  I was up in the close burbs, Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena and there were rental vacancy signs everywhere.  Particularly on the mid-size buildings (6-20 unit) type places.  Saw some neighborhoods where it was literally sign, sign, sign, sign, sign, skip a building, sign, sign, sign.

A very noticeable and dramatic shift compared to prior trips up over the last six months.  Is the pandemic catching up with vacancies where  renters can?t move nd when it goes empty finding a qualified tenant is drying up?
 
Residential rental market will be hot soon and may start this summer assuming covid cases and deaths remain low. The influx of renters will come from ppl who had to sell their homes due to being on forbearance and also because urban places will finally fully reopen by summer. Universities will most likely open as well for the upcoming school year.

While I personally do not like the urban areas, there are tons of people that do and are looking forward to that lifestyle again. Renters right now are simply being more picky on where they decide to rent since rents are lower and vacancies are up.

Commercial real estate will be interesting though. Since the demand for bigger office spaces are not going to be a thing as before. It will be interesting to see how the sky high towers in urban cities will adapt. I don't think they will be able to continue betting on companies to rent them out at pre-covid levels since covid has made WFH a more common thing. Companies are buying into it now since technology makes this possible and also lowers their operating costs significantly.
 
I have a rental in Chino and I purposely listed it above "market" rent at $3000/mo with 1.5x security deposit. I got 120 applicants with maybe 50% of them being high credit and income. Showed the home to about 40 parties in 1 day. I ended up renting it for $300 per month extra with 2x security deposit and 1 year rent prepaid. It was insane how many really well qualified renters applied and the lengths they tried to outbid each other.

This rental market has been insane.
 
Cares said:
I have a rental in Chino and I purposely listed it above "market" rent at $3000/mo with 1.5x security deposit. I got 120 applicants with maybe 50% of them being high credit and income. Showed the home to about 40 parties in 1 day. I ended up renting it for $300 per month extra with 2x security deposit and 1 year rent prepaid. It was insane how many really well qualified renters applied and the lengths they tried to outbid each other.

This rental market has been insane.

Congrats!
What would you have thought 'market' to be before you listed?
What features of the property do you think contributed to the high demand?
 
I thought the upper end would be $3000. My previous tenants which came in 2.5 years ago were paying $2500 which I upped to $2600. Never could I imagine a jump from $2600 to $3300 in just 1.5 years. That's a 27% increase.

There have just simply been a lack of rentals available in the area is the main factor. Many people have called me and told me that it's been a struggle to find anything anywhere at the moment and giving me their sob story about why they need my place. There aren't any particularly outstanding features about the home in my opinion.
 
Cares said:
I thought the upper end would be $3000. My previous tenants which came in 2.5 years ago were paying $2500 which I upped to $2600. Never could I imagine a jump from $2600 to $3300 in just 1.5 years. That's a 27% increase.

There have just simply been a lack of rentals available in the area is the main factor. Many people have called me and told me that it's been a struggle to find anything anywhere at the moment and giving me their sob story about why they need my place. There aren't any particularly outstanding features about the home in my opinion.

Let me throw something out there that'll put some context to where the rental market is.  Pre-covid Irvine would have roughly 500 rental listings at any point in time.  Right now there are only 177 active rental listing in Irvine so rental inventory is down 65% from pre-covid levels.

 
USCTrojanCPA said:
Cares said:
I thought the upper end would be $3000. My previous tenants which came in 2.5 years ago were paying $2500 which I upped to $2600. Never could I imagine a jump from $2600 to $3300 in just 1.5 years. That's a 27% increase.

There have just simply been a lack of rentals available in the area is the main factor. Many people have called me and told me that it's been a struggle to find anything anywhere at the moment and giving me their sob story about why they need my place. There aren't any particularly outstanding features about the home in my opinion.

Let me throw something out there that'll put some context to where the rental market is.  Pre-covid Irvine would have roughly 500 rental listings at any point in time.  Right now there are only 177 active rental listing in Irvine so rental inventory is down 65% from pre-covid levels.

how does listing a rental on Sept 1 (Irvine area), after school starts, affect the rental demand and the pool of renters? maybe better to do 11 month lease?
 
The California Court Company said:
USCTrojanCPA said:
Cares said:
I thought the upper end would be $3000. My previous tenants which came in 2.5 years ago were paying $2500 which I upped to $2600. Never could I imagine a jump from $2600 to $3300 in just 1.5 years. That's a 27% increase.

There have just simply been a lack of rentals available in the area is the main factor. Many people have called me and told me that it's been a struggle to find anything anywhere at the moment and giving me their sob story about why they need my place. There aren't any particularly outstanding features about the home in my opinion.

Let me throw something out there that'll put some context to where the rental market is.  Pre-covid Irvine would have roughly 500 rental listings at any point in time.  Right now there are only 177 active rental listing in Irvine so rental inventory is down 65% from pre-covid levels.

how does listing a rental on Sept 1 (Irvine area), after school starts, affect the rental demand and the pool of renters? maybe better to do 11 month lease?

Honestly, rental listings lease out every part of the year so timing is a not a huge deal.  I've rented out some of my tenant's rental Nov-Jan without any problems.
 
If you're worried about finding a renter just price your listing down slightly below market. With how much rentals are commanding in Irvine you'll rent in no time. 4BR detached condos are fetching $4500. I saw a 4BR attached condo get $4000 most recently.
 
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