Relentless California wildfires fuel Los Angeles housing crisis driving up rents, prices

Rental listings before and after the LA wildfires showed steep hikes in some parts of LA County, as the loss of thousands of homes sent people scrambling for alternate housing in the area.
Listed rental prices more than tripled in parts of Los Angeles after wildfires destroyed thousands of homes, despite anti-gouging rules.

A Washington Post analysis of listings data from property analytics service RentCast found that LA County rents overall jumped 20% two weeks after the disaster compared to two weeks before.

But individual neighborhoods and cities in the sprawling county saw steeper hikes. For example, rent for a single-family home in the city of Glendora, which is about a half hour away from fire-ravaged Altadena, soared 150% to a median monthly rate of $4,974.

In Beverly Hills, rent for a townhouse surged 142% to $15,000, and rent for a single-family home in Encino, an LA neighborhood on the other side of the hills from Pacific Palisades, jumped 141% to $12,025.

But drilling down to individual ZIP codes revealed even bigger increases. Sherman Oaks, which is next to Encino in LA’s San Fernando Valley, saw rent shoot up 266%, according to the Post. Rent in nearby Valley Village leapt 198%, and one ZIP code in the city of Glendale saw a 206% markup.