Dennis RomeroLos Angeles' rents have been on fire lately.
Mix an improving economy, fewer homeowners after the foreclosure debacle of 2007 and a city where new apartments are rare, and you have a potent brew of high rents, high demand and low vacancies.
Rental site Zumper analyzed more than 1 million listings nationwide for its National Rent Report. Locally, the site found the neighborhoods with the greatest rent increases in 2015:
Santa Monica (up 17 percent), downtown L.A. (up nearly 16 percent) and Westwood (up 15 percent).
Other red-hot rental areas that saw rent increases of 10 percent or greater included Westchester, Ladera Heights and part of South Los Angeles, the site said.
If you're looking for places with price drops, maybe Pacific Palisades (down 7.2 percent) is for you. Of course, it “still remains the 12th most expensive neighborhood in the city,” Zumper notes.
The median rent for a one-bed unit there is $2,320, the site says.
Other Westside areas also were offering discounts, but they started off as some of the most expensive rental real estate in L.A. We're talking about Bel Air and Beverly Crest (down 11.5 percent, to $2,300 for a one-bed), Culver City (down 5.2, with a median of $1,930) and Hollywood Hills West (down 2.2 percent, with a $1,820 median).
“Overall,” a Zumper rep said, “L.A. was an incredibly in-demand market, with rent prices up 11.6 percent in 2015.”
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