Downtown L.A. Sees Vacancies Rise and Homeless Populations Grow

There's plenty of housing available in Downtown L.A. for the wealthy but, while those apartments sit empty, many looking for housing find costs too high to pay.

1 minute read

September 20, 2017, 12:00 PM PDT

By Casey Brazeal @northandclark


Los Angeles High Rise Construction

Kit Leong / Shutterstock

High vacancy rates in Downtown L.A.'s residential units have lead landlords to offer parking deals and months of free rent. "Thanks to a wave of market-rate rental construction, supply has outpaced demand downtown since 2014. The vacancy rate now hovers around 12 percent — the highest recorded by real estate research firm CoStar Group since 2000," Josie Huang reports for KPCC.

At the same time, the city is home to a worsening homeless crisis.

"Because zoning updates have made it easier to build taller and denser, and there is not the same level of neighborhood opposition seen in other parts of L.A. High-rises are going onto surface parking lots," Huang writes. Some hope that these vacancies will lead to lower rents, but so far there is little evidence of that effect, perhaps, because of the type of housing. "All the market-rate apartments sitting unoccupied in the interim, however, irritate housing advocates such as Thelmy Perez, given California's shortage of affordably-priced homes," Huang reports.

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