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Orange County rents reached a record high in Q4, with average rent at $1,882, up nearly 6% over the previous year, according to Real Answers (formerly RealFacts), which tracks the apartment market.
The report attributed the continuing upward trend in multifamily rents to strong job growth and low apartment vacancy. Rents, in fact, have steadily escalated, rising in 22 out of 24 quarters since 2010.
Real Answers’ data is based on landlord asking rents at complexes of 90 units or more with vacancy. The survey included 139,000 units or about one-third of all OC apartments. The survey reported vacancy at larger OC apartment complexes was 5.1%, down slightly over the last quarter of 2014. Another survey by ReisReports, which included buildings as small as 20 apartments, verified that rents increased across the board, but reported a lower average rent of $1,753, up 4.1% from the end of 2014.
Comparably, OC placed seventh for priciest rental market out of 82 major US metro markets surveyed. Regionally, OC rents are reportedly higher than San Diego ($1,558), Ventura County ($1,571) and the Inland Empire ($1,176). Reis reported LA asking rent at $2,087, but only surveyed 8% of the market. Rent Jungle reported a median LA rent of $2,011 for a one-bedroom unit, while a rent report from Zillow research put LA’s median overall rent at $2,491. [OCR]
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