For decades, Los Angeles has failed to build enough housing, driving home prices and rents to some of the highest levels in the nation. To make matters worse, the few new apartments that are being built appear to be shrinking.
A new report from RentCafe analyzing apartment size in 100 different metropolitan regions found that the average size of new apartments in Los Angeles is now 770 square feet - a six percent drop (or roughly 50 square feet) from one decade earlier.
That change is in line with trends in the Philadelphia, Seattle, Washington, DC, and Boston areas, which also saw decreases in average new unit sizes. Although by contrast, San Francisco and the Queens submarket of New York saw increases in new unit sizes.
Other jurisdictions within the Los Angeles area such as Anaheim saw an even sharper decrease, with the current average of 847 square feet down 14 percent from one decade earlier. In contrast, Irvine's average of 950 square feet is up five percent over the same time period.
"When we see average apartment sizes decrease in a city, it doesn’t necessarily mean renters are getting less value," writes RentCafe.com analyst Veronica Grecu. "In high-demand markets, developers often prioritize studios and one-bedrooms because they can deliver more apartments per building and meet the needs of a growing number of single-person and smaller households. The trade-off is a lower average square footage, but the upside is more availability in markets where inventory has historically been tight."
While the average size of new apartments in the City of Los Angeles is shrinking, the City's stock of three-bedroom units tend to be larger than those in other parts of Southern California. Los Angeles officials have recently taken steps to encourage the production of larger "family-sized" units in new construction by offering concessions and bonuses through the Citywide Housing Incentive Program.
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