Rising rent squeezes students

If UCLA students went to UC Davis looking for housing, they could find a private room in an apartment for less than half the price of a shared room in Westwood.

According to the UCLA Community Housing Office, the average price for a two-bedroom apartment in Westwood is $2,170, prompting many students to crowd at least four people into one apartment. In contrast, apartments available through the Davis Community Housing Listing give prices as low as $396 for a private room.

The prices that students will come across this spring as they trek through Westwood on the hunt for the perfect apartment are some of the highest that this area has seen.

Rent continues to climb

Since January, average rent prices for apartments in Westwood listed by Westside Rentals, an online listing service, have increased by 5.9 percent.

This trend is nothing new, as rent for Westwood went up between 8 and 11 percent per year for at least the past three years, said Michael Foraker, the assistant vice chancellor for Housing and Hospitality Services.

Key factors contributing to rising prices include Westwood’s close proximity to campus and the fierce competition for housing between students and non-UCLA affiliated individuals wishing to live in Westwood, Foraker said.

“Vacancies are around 3 percent. With those kinds of high occupancy rates, landlords can pretty much charge what they want,” Foraker said.

According to the UCLA Community Housing Office’s rental rate survey for 2006, the average price of a two-bedroom apartment in the Westwood/Bel Air area was $2,170 per month.

With a high demand for apartments and a limited supply of housing near UCLA, students have little control over the rising costs.

Kristen Mondino, a fourth-year psychobiology student, lives at 433 Midvale, where rent is charged per bed. She said she currently pays $700 per month, making her unit one of the more expensive in Westwood, but she does not plan to live there again next year because her rent is set to increase to $875 per month.

“It’s not worth it to live here next year (at that price),” she said.

Foraker said the university offers students off-campus housing at the market price by buying apartment complexes near campus, and he said he hopes this may eventually lead to more stable housing prices.

“If we can increase the inventory we own, we can better exert influence on the rates that are charged,” he said.

While the average price for university-owned apartments are more expensive than the area average, Foraker said that they do comparisons with comparable buildings.

“That’s not to say that someone couldn’t find something less expensive (than university-owned apartments)”, he said.

The university-owned apartments are more expensive than the average privately-owned apartments, according to housing data from the university and the Community Housing Office.

A four-person university-owned apartment with two bedrooms and two bathrooms costs from $22,176 to $25,872 for the 2007-2008 school year. The average cost for an equivalent privately-owned apartment in Westwood for 2006 was $21,700 for a ten-month period, according to Community Housing Office data.

But Foraker said university-owned apartments are often less expensive when compared to privately-owned units with similar amenities, such as cable TV and other services provided.

Hilary Crocker, supervisor at the Community Housing Office, said students seeking lower rental costs should look for apartments farther away from campus, as the demand is lower and landlords are unable to charge as much.

“If students can go just south of Wilshire or west of the 405, they can find tons of apartments of better value,” she said.

The average price for a two-bedroom apartment in nearby Palms was $1,500 in 2006, according to the Community Housing Office data.

Students may also find their budgets increasingly strained if there is a continued increase in the number of condominiums in the Westwood area.

The Westwood North Village Neighborhood Council, which was created to bring together students residents, businesses and community groups in the area, aims to address some of the housing issues.

Sherlyn Mossahebfar, a third-year history student and director of the council, said the council plans to lobby the city to limit zoning and work toward making Westwood housing more affordable.

Rent stabilization

What students might not know is that as they go from building to building, their tenancy rights change ““ which can affect a variety of factors from the rental price to the terms of eviction.

Westwood apartment buildings that were issued certificates of occupancy ““ a document given to a building when it is first built and safe to live in ““ on or before Oct. 1, 1978 are subject to Los Angeles County’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance.

The ordinance was established to protect tenants from excessive rent increases while still allowing landlords to make a reasonable return on their investments.Landlords with units under the mandate cannot raise a current tenant’s rent more than 4 percent during their occupancy and can only issue such an increase once a year.

“If you rent a property that’s not under RSO, rent can be raised at any time,” said Gary Blasi, acting director of the UCLA Institute of Industrial Relations.

While an ordinance regulating rent may sound comforting to students who continually face Westwood’s high housing prices, Blasi said the high turnover rate limits the benefits of the price increase restrictions.

Though a building’s rent under RSO is regulated, once the tenant vacates the unit, the landlord can raise the rent to whatever amount the market will bear.

“The sky’s the limit,” Blasi said.

But the legislation does provide significant protection against evictions.

Buildings that are not subject to RSO can legally evict tenants without specific reasons, making it difficult to dispute such notices, while buildings under RSO give tenants a defense against arbitrary evictions, Blasi said.

While first-time renters may not be aware of their legal rights, Blasi said landlords whose units are subject to RSO do not have much motivation to break the rule limiting rent increases considering that students frequently move in and out on a yearly basis.

Violations of rent control most often occur when tenants have lived in the units for a considerable amount of time, he said.

“The law doesn’t really impose many obligations on the landlord,” he said, adding that there is no proactive enforcement of the rule.

“There’s no particular reason to go out of your way to violate the law,” he said.

Henry DeBey, a fourth-year

Design | Media Arts and geography/environmental studies student, said his landlord was clear about the rent stabilization policy after his first year at his current residence.

“The rent was raised by the allowed 4 percent ““ it was $3,050, and then now its $3,172 for this year,” DeBey said. “We did a little research, he gave the number and figured it was decent.”

Spread over five people, the increase was almost negligible, he said.

A 4 percent increase for an average $2,170 amounts to $86.80, much less than the average 5.9% increase in Westwood rent in the past six months.

With reports from Jennifer Mishory, Bruin senior staff.

Students interested in finding out whether or not their buildings are regulated by the RSO can call the City of Los Angeles Housing Department hotline (866-557-RENT).