After the LA Fires: Rent-Gouging in the Wake of Disaster
The Report
KEY FINDINGS
New listings are priced at 315% of Fair Market Rent, nearly double the legal limit.
Instances surged by 5,065% in just 11 days, with 120 new cases identified daily.
Rent gouging affects both affluent and working-class neighborhoods like Malibu and Koreatown, involving 1,152 distinct actors and 38 repeat offenders.
In the wake of the Palisades and Eaton fires on January 7, 2025, over 5,000 homes were destroyed, displacing thousands and intensifying pressures in an already strained rental market.
Exploiting this crisis, landlords engaged in widespread rent gouging, with our analysis identifying 1,343 instances of illegal rent increases totaling $7.7 million monthly.
By leveraging data scraped from Zillow, we provide the most comprehensive documentation of this predatory practice, highlighting its scale and impact across Los Angeles County.
Editor’s Note (1/28/25): The following corrections were made in the report.
On Page 6, a calculation error in Table B, the “Average Price Before Emergency” has been corrected. The table has been updated accordingly, along with any related references in the text.
On Page 6, a previous version miscalculated the percentage of renter-occupied units as 67% in West Hollywood and 13% in Malibu. These values have been corrected to 76% and 21%, respectively.
On Page 9, a previous version listed an increase as 1,316 cases in 11 days. This has been corrected to 1,317 cases.