LA Officials Reject Stabilized Apartment Rent Freeze Extension

​On November 14, 2023, Los Angeles lawmakers rejected calls to extend a rent freeze on stabilized apartments. They also voted 10-2 in favor of reducing rent increase caps on stabilized apartments starting in February 2024. The new rent increase cap is 4 percent, and 6 percent for landlords who pay tenants’ electricity and gas utilities. Before the vote, the rent increase cap was 7 percent, and 9 percent for landlords who pay tenants’ utilities.

February 2024 will be the first time in four years that Los Angeles landlords of stabilized apartments are free to raise rents. In March 2020, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, city officials placed a rent freeze on apartments falling under the Rent Stabilization Ordinance. These were approximately 118,000 properties, or about 75 percent of multifamily rental properties in the city. The rent freeze stayed, even after the city ended the COVID-19 state of emergency in 2022, to the dismay of landlords.
.
On November 14, ahead of the city vote, tenants’ associations urged lawmakers to extend the freeze arguing that rent increases would hurt people with low incomes. Landlord associations, however, argued that the rent freeze had cost them billions in revenue despite higher maintenance costs and inflation. This forced many of them, especially small business owners, to foreclose or sell their properties at a discount.

Stephen Reeder

Shop