If the idea of ever actually buying your own house in Los Angeles seems like a crazy fantasy, it turns out you’re not alone. As real estate prices continue to surge, L.A. is now a renter-majority city, which makes it pretty unusual nationwide.
According to a study by Abodo, there are only 21 cities in the entire United States where the numbers of people who rent outnumber those who own their homes. Among those 21, the Los Angeles metropolitan area (including Los Angeles, Long Beach and Anaheim) ranks fourth for having the highest percentage of residents who rent. According to the most recent data, 53.9 percent of us are renting our abodes.
New York City and San Francisco also narrowly squeak into the renter-majority category with 50.3 and 50.9 percent of residents renting, respectively, but there are plenty of large urban centers, including Miami, Chicago and Houston, that all have more residents living in homes they own themselves.
The fact that so many Angelenos rent continues to put strain on the rental housing stock, which results in higher monthly rents and a greater share of L.A. incomes being devoted to covering housing expenses.
That doesn’t mean you need to give up all hope of ever living your white-picket-fence dreams just yet, though. If you’re younger, Adobo finds, you may simply not have hit your peak home-owning years. Nationwide, an overwhelming majority of real-estate-owning folks (77.16 percent, in fact) are over the age of 45.
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