L.A.’s wildfires are making a tough rental market even more brutal. Here’s why

The one-bedroom cottage with a woodsy vibe reminded Heather McAlpine of the home she lost to the brutal Los Angeles-area wildfires. But only two hours after seeing the listing, the rental was snapped up.

She is one of tens of thousands of people displaced by the fires who is now competing for housing in a region that is among the most expensive and competitive in the country, partly due to lack of supply.

McAlpine, had lived in her Altadena house for four years and is now staying with her boyfriend. She isn’t surprised by spiking rents.

“I know they’re expensive, and it sucks,” she said.

Tenants who were just getting by before the fires now face a daunting housing search after the January fires leveled entire neighborhoods. The L.A. fires destroyed more than 16,000 homes, businesses and other structures in upscale Pacific Palisades and working-class Altadena, where the U.S. Census reports 22% of homes were occupied by renters.

It’s hard to quantify exactly how the wildfires are affecting the rental market, but L.A. rents rose faster than prices nationwide in January compared to the previous month, according to housing platform Zillow.

The added competition from residents displaced by the fires is likely to worsen housing affordability, increase overcrowding and contribute to homelessness, says Sarah Karlinsky, research director at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley. Already, more than half of all renter households—or a little over one million households—in L.A. County spend 30% or more of their income on rent.

Shane Phillips, housing initiative project manager at the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, expects prices to increase significantly for months, if not a few years.

“There’s only so many people moving at any given time, and suddenly adding another 20,000 households to that amount is just an extraordinary pressure,” he said.

Rental pageviews in L.A. County on the real estate platform Redfin are up 50% from a year ago, said Daryl Fairweather, the company’s chief economist.

She said people will feel the impact of “shorter supply, more fierce competition for rentals.”

Egregious rents cropped up soon after the fires broke out, prompting an ad-hoc group of tenant organizers, web programmers and others to crowdsource examples. The Rent Brigade found more than 1,300 examples of illegal rent increases advertised between January 7 and January 18. Many have since been removed or relisted at lower prices.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has warned repeatedly of the state’s anti-gouging laws, which limits price increases to no more than 10% from whatever the price was before the emergency. His office has so far filed three misdemeanor criminal price-gouging charges.

A 10% cap is still too high for Wendy Dlakic. She was paying about $3,000 a month for a now uninhabitable two-bedroom condo in Altadena, a community she loved. She’s searched rental websites, but for now is staying with friends, family and at Airbnbs.

“It was already expensive,” said Dlakic, an educator who moved to Southern California two years ago. “It’s tough to be in L.A. on one income. You’re right on the edge, you know?”

The “typical rent” in the U.S. was $1,968 as of January 31—up 0.2% from the previous month, according to Zillow. But in the L.A. metro area, the typical rent was up 0.8% to $2,954. Zillow calculates the typical rent figure by averaging the middle 30% of rents.

Daniel Yukelson, executive director of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, says fears of rent-gouging have been overblown by tenant advocates and he’s angry that Bonta has filed criminal charges.

“Some mistakes were unknowingly made,” he said. “If these infractions were pointed out to these few owners, corrections would have surely been made immediately.”

McAlpine, the displaced tenant, realized the Eaton Fire was coming for her in-law unit while she was helping to evacuate neighbors as a Altadena Mountain Rescue Team volunteer. She scooped up her cat, ski gear and camera equipment and fled the 300-square-foot (28-square-meter) cottage.

She’s grateful for donations through GoFundMe, which will help with essentials, but is worried about finding a standalone unit close to nature and within her monthly budget of $1,800 for rent and utilities.

The cottage that McAlpine, a photographer, and her boyfriend wanted was listed for $2,750 a month. Even though they have a bigger budget together, the hunt has been dispiriting.

“I’m quickly looking for the photos. ‘Oh, does this look sketchy or not?’ Or, ‘you know, is this the right price?'” she said. “It’s just very different from how I would normally look for a place to live.”

—Janie Har and Damian Dovarganes, Associated Press

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