Amid a raging political debate about the housing crisis in Los Angeles, local rents continued to grow at a steady pace last month, according to the recently released March 2017 Rent Report.

February rents in Greater Los Angeles, including Orange County, grew 2 percent compared with January, according to the report, published by Apartment List. And they grew 2.4 percent compared with February 2016. The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the L.A. Metro area is now $1,920; the median two-bedroom rent is now $2,700.

Those, of course, are just the middle-of-the-road prices. In a half-dozen city neighborhoods, the median rent for a two-bedroom exceeded $4,000 last month, Apartment List found. Those neighborhoods include Pacific Palisades ($5,700), Venice ($4,970), Brentwood ($4,870), Hollywood Hills ($4,330), Westwood ($4,140) and Century City ($4,050).

Apartment List spokesman Andrew Woo explains that some of those communities with sky-high numbers don't always have enough listings to be statistically significant. “That was the case for Pacific Palisades and Brentwood, and for that reason they are included in the rent map [below] but not discussed in the body of the report,” Woo said via email.

Looking at cities in Greater L.A., Pasadena and Los Angeles had the highest two-bedroom median rent: $2,700. They were followed by Glendale ($2,640). The cheapest two-bedroom median rents in the region were found in Garden Grove ($1,740). Even so, that city saw a 7.9 percent increase in rents overall compared with the same time last year, according to the report..

Housing experts have said Los Angeles needs more than 300,000 new housing units to keep up with demand and that the low supply has been pushing rents upward for several years. Measure S, which is on the Los Angeles city ballot Tuesday, seeks to force the city to stop approving zoning variances for big developments, a move that could stifle much local housing construction for two years. Backers of the measure say it would help put the brakes on gentrification because new luxury apartment development would largely be halted.

Credit: Apartment List

Credit: Apartment List

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