Dennis RomeroMarina del Rey used to be a somewhat frumpy, aging community for retirees and sea-loving salty dogs.
Lately it has become a new destination for the privileged children of the Westside's “Silicon Beach” tech boom, which is based in nearby Del Rey, Playa Vista, Venice, Santa Monica, El Segundo and Hawthorne.
Marina del Rey's '60s-era housing stock was starting to gather serious dust until a newer wave of development — including the Westerly on Lincoln apartments and new structures and tech businesses on Glencoe Avenue in the city of L.A. — sprung forth in the last decade or so..
The unincorporated Marina was never cheap.
But a new Apartment List analysis of thousands of listings for one- and two-bedroom rentals for January 2015 reveals that Marina del Rey, subject of a sweeping L.A. County plan to add nearly 1,000 hotel rooms and 200,000 square feet of retail space to the area, is one of the Golden State's most expensive communities for renters.
The community ranked third for highest rents in California. The median rent was $3,280 for January, but that represents a slight decrease, 2.6 percent, compared with December, Apartment List says.
Keep in mind that the site found the median, two-bedroom rent statewide to be $1,410.
Credit: Apartment List
“California has the fifth highest rents of any state in the country …,” the site said in a statement. “That average reflects sky-high rents in coastal cities being offset by more reasonable rents further inland.”
The most expensive California city for renters was, of course, tech-crazed San Francisco (median $4,420), which was followed by Laguna Beach ($4,300).
Another Westside community, Santa Monica (No. 4 on the list), made the top five here. Median rent was said to be $3,060. That's a 3.4 percent increase compared with the same time last year, says Apartment List.
The site stated the obvious when it said …
Credit: Marina life, via Prayitno/Flickr
… While San Francisco can claim the most expensive rents in the state, with 2-bedroom units averaging $4,420, many of the other most expensive cities are located on the beach in Southern California. This group includes Laguna Beach, Marina del Rey and Santa Monica.
By the way, if you want to save some dough while staying in the Golden State, you can always move to Merced ($700) or Bakersfield ($750), which have the lowest rents on the list.
Keep in mind, however, that if you moved there you'd have to actually live there, which is the hard part.
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