Inflation and the future rent increases in Los Angeles

[Omid Sadeghpour]

Hello everyone,

I own 6 rental units in the city of Los Angeles and am new to this "rent freeze" topic.

Given that Los Angeles is rent-controlled, does anyone know the following:

Once the rent freeze is removed, will the city allow landlords to also increase past years (i.e.: 2020, 2021, 2022...) in which rent was not increased in an amortized manner given the rate of inflation?

Meaning, worst-case scenario is that inflation in 2023 is 3% and we as landlords can only increase rents by 8%. Ideally, we should be able to increase rents by 8%, and another extra 2.5% for the next 10 years. How do I get that extra 1%? Because the rent increase from 2020, 2021, 2022 should be at least 15% plus the inflation of those years which is about 10% cumulatively. 

So 25% / 10 years is 2.5%. This is really bad math, but in essence... does anyone know if we are going to have that?

[Will Barnard]

Judging by the history of LA politics and rules, I would bet against it. Landlords will likely have to eat the loss like they have to on almost everything else too. All the laws here favor the tenants, not the evil and rich landlords (obviously being facetious here).