Reply #28: LAT: Housing skid beginning to affect Southland rents

[mojavekid]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-rents19jul19,1,912862.story?coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=1&cset=true

When Riverside County landlord Eloise Figueroa learned that her tenant was about to move out of her four-bedroom home in Perris and into a lower-priced rental house, she sprang into action.

"I said, 'Where are you going? What are you paying? OK. That's your new rent,' " said Figueroa, who agreed to cut her renter's $3,000 monthly lease by $150 to keep him.

After years of substantial increases, landlords throughout Southern California are finding it's getting harder to increase rents at the same torrid rate. On average, rents are still rising, but more slowly than they have been.

No place is the phenomenon more pronounced than in the Inland Empire, where the slumping housing market is creating new competition in the form of vacant and unsold homes.

What's more, Riverside and San Bernardino counties have experienced a boom in new apartment construction that dumped nearly 5,000 units on the market in the last 12 months.

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