John SkinnerSouthern California rents, as measured by the Consumer Price Index “CPI”, fell for the seventh consecutive month in April. On a year-over-year basis It’s the longest era of declining rents since the mid-1990s.
April’s rent CPI was down 0.6% from a year ago — slightly smaller declines that we saw in the previous four months. The SoCal rent CPI fell in 17 of 26 months in a period that ended in November 1995. SoCal rents, by this measure, rose steadily on a year-over-year basis from that point until last October — and averaged 4.4% annual growth in that period.
