Madison Aument: For 91.9 KVCR News, I’m Madison Aument, and this is Economics IE. Today, I’m speaking with Jonathan Lansner, a business columnist with the Southern California News Group, which publishes The Press-Enterprise and The San Bernardino Sun. We discussed a column he published last week analyzing rent prices across Southern California. Let's just start with how you compiled your data on these rental prices.
Jonathan Lansner: Well, Apartment List—that has been following forever, seemingly since 2016, I think their data goes back to—they have a monthly report. And I thought it was time to look at rents.
Particularly, rents are always, you know, an interesting topic that doesn’t get the sort of spotlight that home prices do, but they’re just as important to many people—roughly about half the people in Southern California.
And particularly this year, there’s been a lot of drama in the rental market, particularly because of the L.A. wildfires back in January and fears that things like home prices and rents would soar because 12,000-plus families were displaced by the fire and had to find new housing.
Aument: Yeah, and the column says geography is really in play. So can you just talk about where you’re seeing the higher rents and also maybe the falling rents?
Lansner: Well, the big thing that I see as far as rent increases is that the sort of—you know—the further that you get from the coast, the smaller both the rent is and the rent hike this year. I think that’s often true because, as we all know, Southern Californians—the coast is where the money is, and the coast is where often people who have some money want to live.
We did see some of the largest rent hikes over the past year—about 3%—in places like Pasadena and Pomona and Burbank and Santa Monica, which are, you know, right around the fire areas.
You know, on the flip side, there were places like the city of Los Angeles and Monrovia, where rents were down slightly. None of these things are universal, particularly in this market where a couple of things, you know, are in play.
I think the first thing is, the economy is a little shaky, and some people and/or some landlords don’t want to charge up, because their stability may be a better thing to think about in 2025 than moving for either a better place or a cheaper place, you know.
And the second thing is, we had a decent amount of construction—that construction creating some competition amongst landlords to at least keep their rents flat, if not offer various types of incentives.
As much as I would bet, if we had talked at the start of the year, right after the wildfires, and would have told renters that they were in for a tough year—I think the message in the middle of the summer is that it was far better than feared. Though it’s probably a little bit hard to find a bargain for a renter in Southern California.
Aument: Yeah, it looks like your list of places where rents went down a little bit—it’s a lot of Inland Empire cities.
Lansner: Those markets have long been the region’s bargain, and probably why there’s so much growth in those areas: people who are looking for a housing bargain. And you don’t have to be a renter—you could also want to be a wannabe owner—have looked to the Inland Empire the past 20 years or so.And I think the Inland Empire—say, the economy inland—is a little bit softer than by the coast, but neither are either booming, or neither of them are crashing.
Aument: That was Jonathan Lansner with the Southern California News Group. Thanks for listening to Economics IE. Funding for this segment comes from the Nowak Family. You can find this segment and others at our website kvcrnews.org/econie. For KVCR News, I’m Madison Aument.
