– how can rent be so high when there are so many listings? Shouldn’t competition drive it down?

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Searching for apartments in the LA area – there are 558 listings on zillow in westside LA under 2k$. Many are within blocks of each other, lots are units in the same building. With so much inventory, shouldn’t market forces cause some landlord to lower the rent? Does the economic theory of supply and demand not apply for the housing market?

In: Economics

15 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

“Shouldn’t competition drive it down?”

It does, to an extent. The Austin, TX area has had one of the biggest decreases in median rent in the nation lately, and coincidentally it also has some of the highest rates of new housing construction in the nation.

With LA specifically though, as others have pointed out, a few hundred units is really nothing in a metro area that large.

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