Santa Monica renters are receiving slight relief, albeit in a still-pricey market for apartments, while the city’s housing trends have been deemed a “seller’s market.”
According to a May Los Angeles rent report from Apartment List, Santa Monica apartment prices dropped over the past month by 0.6 percent, one of only six out of the 26 Los Angeles metropolitan area cities to see a decrease throughout April and into May. The median one-bedroom apartment price in Santa Monica now stands at $2,340 per month, while the median two-bed is at $2,805.
Typically a candidate for the top five most expensive rental spots in the metro, Santa Monica has fallen down the list compared to other cities in the area. Santa Monica is now the eighth-priciest place in the Los Angeles metro to rent a one-bedroom apartment, trailing the likes of Calabasas, Lake Forest, Laguna Niguel, Newport Beach, Aliso Viejo, Irvine and Rancho Santa Margarita. For two-bedroom apartments, the city now ranks ninth, behind the aforementioned cities as well as Mission Viejo.
Looking at year-to-year, Santa Monica has had the second-biggest dip in rent prices, dropping 4.7 percent from April 2023 to April 2024. The city trails only West Hollywood (a dip of 6.3 percent) in the year-to-year category. Overall, metro-wide annual rent growth has fallen by 1.3 percent.
In real estate, Santa Monica has been deemed a seller’s market, according to a new Westside Los Angeles market update by Lombardi Real Estate Wealth Advisors. The median sold price for a single-family residence in Santa Monica this past month was $3.8 million, up 4.74 percent from March, and the selling price was 3.6 percent higher than listing price in the city. The median amount of days a listing was on the market, per Realtors Property Resource, was 20, down over 25 percent from March to April.
Homes selling “relatively fast,” the Lombardi report states, “indicates strong interest from buyers and a competitive market environment.” The report adds that sellers are finding success in terms of pricing, especially with the selling price going for slightly more than the listed price, “demonstrating demand for properties in this market.”
“Overall, these factors indicate a lively real estate market with opportunities for both buyers and sellers,” the Lombardi report stated. “Buyers can expect competition and quick sales, while sellers may benefit from strong pricing and demand for their properties.”
One of Santa Monica’s Westside neighbors, Marina del Rey, is also experiencing a high seller’s market at the moment, with a median single-family residence selling for nearly $1.57 million, a jump of almost 16 percent from March to April. The list-to-sold price also jumped up to houses selling above the list price on average by 2 percent, a jump from 0.77 percent under the listing price in March.
A more balanced market can be found in Venice, where the median selling price for a single-family abode is currently at $2.3 million, a vast decline of almost 32 percent from March to April. However, the list-to-sold price did increase in April, and the median days a residence stays on the market went down slightly to 29.