Cotality: Los Angeles single-family rent costs nearly triple after devastating wildfires

Cotality: Los Angeles single-family rent costs nearly triple after devastating wildfires

• Los Angeles rents increased sharply in February following the wildfires that devastated the city in January and put the city at the top of the list for highest rent growth at 7.2%.

• U.S. single-family rent prices increased 2.9% year-over-year in February 2025.

• National low-end rental prices were up 2% compared to the high-end price gains of 3.7%.

IRVINE, Calif., April 17, 2025 – Cotality, a leading global property information, analytics, and data-enabled solutions provider, today released its latest Single-Family Rent Index (SFRI), which analyzes single-family rent price changes nationally and across major metropolitan areas. Single-family rent prices increased 2.9% year over year in February 2025.  This is a slight increase from February 2024, when rent prices grew 2.8% year over year.  

Los Angeles, California, had the highest year-over-year price increases at 7.2%, as thousands of residents were displaced by the devastating wildfires in Pacific Palisades and Eaton that destroyed nearly 20,000 properties. The increase was most pronounced in high-end rentals. Compared to the previous year, when high-end rentals increased an average of 2.6%, February saw the price of these top-tier rentals increase 9.1%.

The monthly growth rate for February was 1%, which was above the average of 0.2% for February from 2004-2019, marking the second consecutive month of above-trend seasonal growth.  

"Single-family rent growth strengthened in February, continuing a trend of higher annual gains. The monthly increases in the single-family rent index were above the seasonal trend as well, which contrasts with those recorded by the home price index. While economic uncertainty may be putting a damper on the home purchase market, it may have the opposite effect on the rental market as renters may choose to stay put," said Molly Boesel, senior principal economist at Cotality.

Rent prices for high-end properties increased 3.7% year over year in February, a gain from the 2.9% growth seen at the same time last year. In contrast, low-end rent prices increased 2% year over year in February, a slowdown from the gain of 2.9% seen in February 2024.

Rent growth across property types ticked up in February 2025, with both detached and attached rentals experiencing a growth rate of 3%.  

While Los Angeles’ 7.2% single-family rent growth topped the charts in February 2025, Chicago once again followed closely behind at 7.1% growth. Dallas continued to have the lowest growth at just 0.3% in February 2025, followed by Houston at 2% and Miami at 2.1%.  

The next Cotality Single-Family Rent Index will be released on May 15, featuring data for March 2025. For ongoing housing trends and data, visit the Cotality Insights Blog: www.cotality.com/insights.

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Methodology

The Cotality Single-Family Rent Index (SFRI) applies a repeat pairing methodology to single-family rental listing data in the Multiple Listing Service. The rental listings used to calculate the index include both attached and detached single-family homes, as well as condominiums. This report shows trends for the U.S. and the largest 10 U.S. metropolitan areas. In addition to these 10 metros, the Cotality SFRI is available for close to 100 metropolitan areas — including approximately 47 metros with four value tiers — and a national composite index. The indices are fully revised with each release to signal turning points sooner.

The Cotality Single-Family Rent Index analyzes data across four price tiers: Lower-priced, which represent rentals with prices 75% or below the regional median; lower-middle, 75% to 100% of the regional median; higher-middle, 100%-125% of the regional median; and higher-priced, 125% or more above the regional median.

Median rent price data is produced monthly by Cotality Rental Trends. Rental Trends is built on a database of more than 11 million rental properties (over 75% of all U.S. individually owned rental properties) and covers all 50 states and 17,500 ZIP codes.

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About Cotality

Cotality accelerates data, insights, and workflows across the property ecosystem to enable industry professionals to surpass their ambitions and impact society. With billions of real-time data signals across the life cycle of a property, we unearth hidden risks and transformative opportunities for agents, lenders, carriers, and innovators. Get to know us at www.cotality.com.  

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